Respect before beanbags
I have worked in some strange offices in my career. At a start up, I spent six months in a cramped office above a meat market, where arriving in the morning meant dodging large men in blood smeared coats carrying sides of beef. While working for a large UK bank, which had run out of space in its premises, I spent time in a business continuity centre, surrounded by banks of anonymous desks stretching away into the distance, waiting to be filled in the event of a disaster. As part of a confidential corporate restructuring project, I worked in an empty office scheduled for decommissioning and demolition, hoping that the security systems would keep working for long enough to let the team out in the evening.
And, because I have spent my career in enterprise technology, I have also worked in many environments which look as if they have been outfitted from the ‘digital’ section of the IKEA catalogue, full of bright colours, breakout areas, ping pong tables, expensive chairs - and, of course, bean bags.
There is nothing wrong with these self-consciously digital environments: they are usually pleasant to work in, they are often open and airy, and they are a visual signal that the organisation has given at least some thought to the wellbeing and motivation of their technical teams. (The exception being when the organisation rips the ceiling tiles out, to create a ‘start up’ feel. In the winter, they usually discover that the ceiling tiles were there for a reason.)
However, they can also be a red flag: a sign that the organisation has not thought hard enough about what their technology teams really need. Often the chain of reasoning goes like this: our technology is terrible and failing; our best people are leaving; we need to attract and retain people who build and run technology; big tech companies seem to be able to find and keep people; their offices are bright and airy and fun; our budget can stand some beanbags, paint and foos-ball tables; let’s call the decorators.
The problem with this line of thought is two fold. First, it treats technical people as the weird and exotic inhabitants of a digital zoo, who need special physical surroundings. It does not truly seek to understand them or their needs: it simply attempts to emulate what seems to work in other contexts - even though those contexts are very different from most other organisations. Second, it fails to recognise that the physical environment is not the only environment in which technical people work - and those other environments often matter more.
First, and most obviously, is the technical environment. Technical people do technical work, and the place they do most of their work is not defined by walls or furniture: it is defined by software and the availability of technical resources. If you ask most developers whether they would prefer a faster machine, access to better tools, or more plants in the office, they are unlikely to choose the last option. Bright walls and inspirational posters should not be the backdrop to slow builds.
Second, and just as important, is the procedural environment. Technical people work in teams, and make changes which affect the behaviour of production services. It’s necessary to have some processes and procedures, if only to co-ordinate work, prevent things breaking, and respond when they do. However, if these procedures are designed by non-technical people, are manual rather than automated, and rely on mutiple approvals and boards, they create an environment of friction and delay - no matter how fast the machines or how comfy the chairs. It can be particularly frustrating to sit in your breakout pod, using your high end Macbook to fill in a form asking approval from a change board that follows processes from the 1990s.
There is one more environment, and getting that environment right makes it more likely that we will get the others right. It is the professional environment of understanding and respect - the environment created by leaders, and determined by the degree to which they understand, respect and appreciate the work of everybody in their teams. A focus on the physical environment alone is a signal that this understanding and respect is missing, and that the organisation hopes that an appearance of being ‘digital’ will translate into reality.
Unfortunately, you can’t furnish your way to digital transformation. But if you start with an understanding and respect for what technical people do for a living, what helps them to thrive and be successful, you might eventually conclude that you need bright and airy spaces, nice chairs and the occasional ping-pong table - once you have figured out the technical environment, the procedural environment and the professional environment.
