Adaptable Organizations Invest in Empowered Collaboration

When it comes to the open office floor plan, there are typically two types of people: Those who enjoy working in big, open spaces with the opportunity to bump into colleagues and make small talk, and those that hate every second of it. 

The fact that there will be differing opinions is an important consideration, says Diana Rhoten. As an organizational design and innovation strategist, Rhoten says it’s important to look at people’s behaviors to understand how to design and adapt the workplace.  

In a world where adaptability is a key ingredient of resiliency, companies need agile environments and teams who are deeply collaborative.  

Workplace design can be the make-or-break factor. 

With an open office floor plan, a common misconception is that “if we have open space work environments, people will naturally bump into each other and suddenly will have serendipitous, simultaneous explosions of innovation. It just does not work that way,” Rhoten explains. 

Instead, many people wear headphones or walk the long way around an open space office, rather than take a direct route that might require engagement with colleagues. Rhoten says this is the opposite effect of what an adaptable workplace seeks to achieve, which is a confluence of social, technological, and physical conditions that inspire collaboration. 

Collaboration, as she outlines it, is more than working together to achieve a common goal. It’s a non-siloed engagement process that empowers people to take collective ownership of their work — and the workspaces they inhabit. 

There are a few key characteristics of adaptable spaces that can act as a starting point for consideration, says Rhoten.  

For instance, ensuring employees have access to different, flexible workspace zones that are dependent on the type of work they’re doing. Ask yourself and your team, “Do you have enough quiet space? Do you have enough collaborative space?” 

A second characteristic is modularity. “Do you have the ability to configure and reconfigure not just for what we know today, but for what we might learn tomorrow?” Rhoten asks. “This includes being able to close off spaces, open up spaces, enlarge spaces, and being able to actually reshape them altogether.” 

These options should not only be provided to professional service and knowledge workers, she cautions. Experiences of more hands-on employees need to be equally considered. 

Employees — and, by extension, their workspaces — play an integral role in fulfilling an organization’s purpose. Increasingly, leaders know they can’t foster productive, resilient work environments without actively engaging their teams in the process. 

“Really adaptive organizations are based on teams and networks that flex and mix and mingle, largely based on what the customer and the environment is demanding from the organization,” says Rhoten. This structure embraces the “bottom-up power” of employees, empowering them to better deliver on an organization’s purpose and performance in an environment facilitated by more collaborative, flexible approaches to both space and management. 

Rhoten believes that multidisciplinary integration and insight can accelerate an organization’s journey toward resilience. She suggests organizational designers work hand in hand with architects, engineers, and interior designers to combine their varied perspectives, in order to craft highly intentional spaces that are adaptable in both physical and social ways.