3
March 9, 2013 at 2:33pm
by Psybertron Prompted by this tweeted by David Gurteen, I recalled recent experience in a particular company.
I’ve been around a bit, worked over many years in different organisations, at different levels of management, and done a bit formal education and a lot of reading and writing on management subjects. I’d say I was a pretty well confirmed advocate of the MBWA (Management by Walking Around) approach and the Water Cooler ad-hoc conversations approach to organizational communications, even before ubiquitous social technology channels emerged.
However, my last full-time employment job (I currently work as an independent contractor) was in a Norwegian organisation where they took a very strong opposing view. Even having a conversation with someone at your desk or theirs was frowned upon – others at desks within earshot would “Shhh” and give dirty stares if you did stop to talk or shout over the open-plan cubicles more than a couple of sentences. You always had to invite someone over to a meeting area. To be fair there were various kinds of informal as well as formal meeting spaces available, but there was never the ad-hoc overheard participation.
3 Comments
#1. Ian 05.17.2013
It is the ad-hoc/overheard meeting that I miss now that I am predominantly a home worker. I realised a few weeks ago that I had not been into our head office (effectively my local office) for nearly six months. I have now forced myself to visit and arrange the odd meeting face to face that I would previously have done via WebEx just to get back into the mix. The value (both to me and the company) has become immediately apparent as I lobbed in the odd well received idea to conversations that I would not have had if I had stayed remote. (… and, yes, I have noticed your other most on remote working
)
#2. Psybertron 05.17.2013
Presumably you meant this one http://www.psybertron.org/?p=5652
(I have a large draft post in progress collecting together earlier comments on national governance.)
#3. Ian 05.17.2013
Yes. I’ll be interested to read the national governance post when it emerges too.
Leave a Comment