Tomorrow is moving day for us at work.
Changing buildings on campus.
And changing from personal offices to cubes.
I will miss the privacy and the quietness of having my own office, but I am actually a little excited about moving into the new cube environment.
Here are a few reasons why…….
- I believe you work better with people you know. The walls of offices prevent you from getting to know people well.
- I believe that work performed in an attractive, clean, and creatively designed environment will be more attractive, clean, and creative than work performed in an ugly, sloppy, and boring environment. Our current office space has a 3 color design scheme. Grey, Gray, and Greigh. And it is not uncommon to see trash bins and junk piles cluttering the hallways. I’m ready for a more inspiring workspace.
So do you agree? Does the physical environment where work is performed have a direct impact on the quality of the work performed there?
And just for fun, check out some cool office spaces here…..here……here
The other day, during an away from work conversation about work, a colleague of mine said…..
You have to choose your battles.
It is one of those cliches that we have all heard a million times, but hearing it again got me thinking.
At work, whenever I notice a poor process, an ineffective tool, or an inefficient way of doing things, my first reaction is usually, “Let’s just fix it….now”.
But in most organizations, especially large organizations, it is not always that easy.
I am learning that I can actually increase the pace of change by carefully choosing my battles.
When I make noise and try to drive immediate change for everything that requires change, I run the risk of damaging work relationships, overwhelming myself and others, and creating even more resistance.
When I focus on driving change in 1 or 2 areas that require change, I am able to strengthen work relationships through teamwork, develop some examples of success, and build an environment where people are open to more change.
In almost any line of work, a smooth convergence of Systems, Processes, and People is critical.
- Process and People without good Systems = Inefficiency
- People and Systems without good Process = Wasted Talent and Wasted Technology
- Systems and Process with People that don’t fully understand the Systems and Process = Inefficiency, Wasted Talent, Wasted Technology, Chaos, and Confusion
At work today, instead of our Systems, Processes, and People smoothly converging, they roughly collided.
I have a process for work email that used to work fairly well.
I like my Inbox to be an Inbox…….not a Stay There For a Long Time Box.
An email comes in…..
- If the email requires nothing from me and I don’t need it for future reference, I delete it.
- If it requires a response or a quick action that takes less than 1 minute of my time, I go ahead and do it immediately.
- If it requires a response or action from me that takes longer than 1 minute, I copy it into a Task for me to work on at a future time.
- If it doesn’t require action from me, but I could need the email for future reference I move it into an archive folder.
Unfortunately, that process isn’t working anymore.
I am drowning in email.
I have to try something different. Maybe set aside certain times of the day to process email.
Anyone else drowning in email? Any suggestions?
I just finished reading a book called Simplicity: The New Competitive Advantage in a World of More, Better, Faster by Bill Jensen.
The layout and overall flow of the book was a little complex for a book titled Simplicity, but the book contained tons of great information and ideas.
The book had my mind racing…..identifying areas where we have unnecessary complexity at work………thinking of ways to organize, simplify, and work smarter.
One idea that came up throughout the book was this…..
- Knowledge workers in most companies are bombarded with, overwhelmed with, and drowning in information, data, meetings, and requests for their time.
- Making sense of it all becomes job #1.
- Turning all that information into action falls a distant second.
The author found that simple companies and organizations provide tools and organize information in a way so that employees are able to spend less time on making sense of everything and more time on taking action.
To the whiteboard…..
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