Donn Coffee

Focuses on total organization development. Definition of the effective manager; Assumptions on nature of organizations; Training focus.

ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT OR TRAINING

(From USA Today) -- At online retailing giant Zappos, two of the top managers have no titles, and no one — except for two in-house lawyers — has an office. Not even the CEO.The Nevada-based company's 1,300 workers (average age, 36), from the founders to programmers, mill about rooms without walls. Small cubicles serve as stations to park personal items, but work can be done anywhere — on couches, at shared tables or at the coffee shop down the street. Ear buds, not partitions, act as sound barriers."They're more concerned about being around other people who do cool things than how big their desks are," says Zach Ware, a no-title Zappos executive. "Our workspace has become our laptops."The office of The Office is fading and shrinking in the process.Technology, the urge to go green, telecommuting and a generation of workers who grew up with smartphones in their hands and computers in their laps are revamping the work culture. Companies are knocking down walls, even dismantling cubicles to create a free-flowing layout that many believe gets the creative juices flowing and encourages collaboration.Younger workers welcome the change, says Patricia Lancaster, head of The Lancaster Group real estate consulting company who teaches at New York University's Schack Institute of Real Estate. "They don't aspire to the big corner office," she says. "They don't even want it."And they don't need an assigned work station to call their own. Their cherished family photos adorn not their cubicles but their computers' wallpapers. They're kept on smartphones and posted on Facebook, not pinned to a bulletin board at desks.At the same time, office equipment from printers and copiers to computers are shrinking. The paper trail is also waning, making big file cabinets obsolete in many work areas.There's an added bonus for employers: Open floor plans accommodate more workers in less space, a welcome savings for companies scrambling to cut costs in a rough economy. Efficiency is also at a premium at a time when environmental concerns are on the rise.A survey this year by CoreNet Global, an association of corporate real estate and workplace professionals, found that for many companies, the average allocation of office space per person will fall to 100 square feet or less within five years.Read more.

The Shrinking Office

In traditional, co-located meetings we often incentivize people to participate. We supply donuts or the fancy coffee from that quaint cafe down the street. We make sure a high-profile leader attends the meeting. We send out a review email to everyone as a reminder of who did what.A virtual meeting lacks many of those incentives. So how do we get people to attend and participate in our virtual meetings? A good rule of thumb is CASH. No, you shouldn’t have to pay people to attend your virtual meetings, but by using these four suggestions you can make your meetings more productive.Consider who you invite. Not everyone should be invited to your meeting. If you want an engaged, useful, and progressive meeting, you have to have attendees that are invested in the meeting topic. If someone is on the conference call or online meeting as an ancillary participant, they don’t have a reason to participate. Then, the people who should be participating may be less inclined to thinking, “There are 12 other people on this call and they haven’t spoken up. I guess I shouldn’t either.”Accountability for all. For routine staff meetings, invest some time talking about what being an active participant means for the group. I’ve seen groups create a list of rules, including “be on time,” “no multi-tasking,” and “everyone has to speak once.” Then, encourage participants to hold each other accountable.Standardize the meeting with an agenda. Every meeting needs an agenda sent out to all participants prior to the meeting. The agenda will outline the purpose of the meeting, and will give participants an opportunity to prepare their thoughts. Prepared meeting attendees participate more.Help staff manage distractions. When is the last time you were at an in-person  meeting where someone wasn’t multitasking? The same distractions are present for virtual meeting attendees, minus the accountability of someone watching what you are doing. Give staff permission to turn off their email notifications for the duration of the meeting. Set a clear expectation for complete focus. For a brainstorming meeting, encourage an open internet browser to help generate new ideas. Be flexible while modeling the behavior you want to see from your participants.Virtual meetings can be even more productive than a traditional meeting. An adept meeting facilitator, carefully chosen participants, and an investment in the topic can turn a meeting overridden by distractions into a meaningful use of time and energy.For more tips, join me for the Essentials of Managing Remote Workforces Certificate program, starting online December 2, 2014.

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