Busting management myths
I love social psychology, it fascinates me. I particularly like experiments. It is one thing to put forward a theory about why people behave the way that they do; it is another thing altogether to prove it with some data. Let me give you an example, how should you set up an office? Should you mandate a clear desk policy?
The lean office
Many people will tell you we should have tidy offices. If we rigorously apply a clear desk policy, then our staff will be far more productive.
Some organisations love this approach to productivity and diligently apply the 5S model to all their offices. Sorting, setting in order, shining, standardising and, hardest of all, sustaining a neat, ordered approach. If it works on the factory floor, it must, of course, work in the office.
Image by Everjean
The enriched office
Others claim that we should really have welcoming offices.
We should create a warm and agreeable environment for our staff. Somewhere where they can relax and feel good about the company they work for. Modern art, office plants and breakout areas will all boost employee productivity. Anybody who has ever seen a picture of a Google office will recognise this approach. Offices should be fun and attractive places to be.
Image by K2Space
The empowered office
A final group claim that what the office looks like isn’t important at all.
What matters is that businesses let their staff create their own environment. If a member of staff wants to put a picture of their pet cat on the wall, or sit knee-deep in used coffee cups let them do it. People work best when they can control their own space. They argue that an enforced clear desk policy is a curse on engagement and productivity.
Image by RachelFujita
A lot of received wisdom
All the advice sounds plausible and each approach has its proponents, but what does the data say?
In 2010 Craig Knight and Alexander Haslam decided to find out.
The experiment
They set up a small office at the University of Exeter and invited a succession of people into it to do a couple of clerical tasks. They were asked to:
- Sort memos into chronological order
- Read a piece of text highlighting all the lower case b’s
Knight and Haslam timed how long the tasks took and counted the number of errors that were made, so creating a productivity measure. Once they had a measurement system in place they could start their experiments and see if the workplace really made a difference.
To see which of the environments was most productive they set up the office in three different ways:
- A lean office, with a table chair and telephone.
- An enriched office, with some pot plants and pictures added to the mix.
- An empowered office, exactly the same as the enriched office but the subjects of the experiment were allowed to move the pictures and pot plants to wherever they wanted.
The results
Were conclusive:
If you want your staff to work quickly and effectively, give them some control over their environment. Enforcing a clear desk policy is a bad thing to do.
The twist
Knight and Haslam added a fourth environment to the mix. The disempowered office.
This was exactly the same as the empowered office with one simple change. When the subject of the experiment had finished making his workspace comfortable, the experimenter walked back into the office, thanked the subject for his contribution and put all the decorations back where they had come from.
This intervention also had rather stark results:
Tell me something I don’t know
Who would have thought it? People do not like being controlled. When they are, they take their discretionary effort away.
In the debrief after the experiment, when Knight and Haslam came clean about what they were doing, one of the subjects admitted that she was so upset by the reorganisation that she wanted to hit the experimenter.
This might stand out as the most blindingly obvious point I have ever made on this blog. But answer this question:
Where you work how much control is given to the staff?
And we worry that productivity is low…
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Image by Thereaver Barrymore
Read the full experiment
In this day and age, it seems people can work anywhere. As long as they have wifi and a place to sit (probably in that order), they can be/are productive. I love that it took an actual study to come to that conclusion.
Annette :-)
So so true. And that stress is then supercharged by the latest efficiency technique … hot-desking in a “ratio working” space.
But if you have a hot desk policy I guess the Empowered approach is out and Enriched is the best you can hope for.
I suppose empowered hot desks do, by dint of circumstance, have to have a clear desk policy applied. Which is maybe why they are so unpopular.
Nothing in life is ever simple :)
Hello James,
You said it: people do not like to be controlled!
We welcome direction when direction is missing and confusion reigns. Else keep your direction to yourself.
We welcome your participation in our business when we ask for it AND your participation actually makes a positive contribution – it makes our work easier and/or improves the end product.
We welcome support when we ask for it else your support occurs as meddling.
Yes, we see ourselves as adults and we like to have certain element of control over our lives including the work environment. If you give it to us then we are likely to be positively disposed to you and put in more discretionary effort.
Incidentally, I have noticed the BIG positive impact of making the small stuff (coffee, cold drinks, fruit, snacks) available (and topped up) for free to the people who work there. This stuff shows goodwill towards us and most of us reciprocate.
I wonder Maz when support from your boss becomes control? I guess it is a thin line to cross