When culture has a chance to flow freely from individuals and across an organization, it grows stronger and more rapidly.
As a CEO coach, I would advise you that once you get rid of private offices, make sure your employees aren’t divided from one another either.
Mix in sales with engineering, marketing with support. Put members of your leadership team in various parts and floors of the office.
Not only will this build culture, but also it will enhance each employee’s understanding of what other people do in your company.
How can you possibly be connected to your customer or your employees if all your la-di-daa senior executives are on the top floor or in a corner office with the door closed?
Don’t act all ‘Les Nessman’ by removing yourself from the same space your employees occupy. If you sit with them there won’t be an us/them mentality, and you’ll absorb the same work culture your employees do.
If you have private office, take a sledge hammer to the walls and put the door on eBay.
Also ideas like a ‘Dream Room’, a ‘Wii Room‘ and a ‘Nap Room‘ will be very popular and drastically help break down department barriers and reduce employee turnover.
Russell Holcombe
March 26, 2010
For many, this can feel like being the emperor who is told to just get naked in front of anyone without the preface of imaginary threads. The employers that I’ve seen vehemently oppose this model genuinely seem to believe that removing the silos to create culture is the second best way to enable culture (a distant second to Command and Control). If I am heading into the candidate pool in 2010, evaluating how an organization handles silos is near the top of my list prior to accepting an offer.