Feng shui experts say the architecture of a building dramatically shapes the behavior of the people inside. Here at The Company, it’s certainly true.
We’re housed in a rigid tower, with a floor plan designed to communicate the relative importance of the employees within. Generally speaking, the higher your floor, the more vital your contribution is judged to be. The Big Boss and Slightly Smaller Bosses reside at the top; folks like me toil in the building’s nether regions.
Whether the building creates or merely reflects our vertical mentality is unclear — but one thing is certain: The Company is the most vertical organization I’ve ever worked for. Virtually every project requires multiple levels of approval, and something as simple as a slide promoting a employee photo contest is handled (and, frequently, revised by) as many as seven different signature authorities.
Just this week, in fact, I was asked to create an illustration, which I produced in about an hour. I was directed to hand this off to a low-level employee, who then circulated it to two higher level employees, who, in turn, passed it up to each of their bosses, who, ultimately, passed it on to their bosses, too.
Those bosses suggested changes to their direct reports, who handed those changes down to their direct reports, who, in turn, relayed them to a low-level employee, who passed them along to me. Along the way, other people — some with a good sense of design, and some not saddled with that particular burden — suggested still other edits and enhancements.
This could have been a very simple project. I could have designed the illustration, emailed it directly to the decision makers, gotten their input in one fell swoop, and pumped out the final product in under ninety minutes. Instead — because I had to email someone who emailed someone who emailed someone who spoke with someone who emailed someone — the project took days to complete.
I’m not naive. I know this is the nature of Corporate Beasts.
That said: as the pace of business increases, I can’t help but think about what we might achieve if our rigid, structured, excessively hierarchical Company were to stress accountability over authority, simplify the chain of command, allow more direct access to the decision makers, and trust its employees a little more.
Trust employees more? Are you mad? I always view those people in the chain as dogs who are required to pee on every tree they pass by. This is how they justify their job. Interestingly, after enough dogs go by it often returns to the exact state it was in when you started.
Welcome to my world! ;(
If you go straight to emailing the boss, you cut out all the jobs of the little people…lets storm the castle and take over…YAHOO! (Wait a minute…I’M THE LITTLE PEOPLE…can I deliver that email for you sir?)
A good post.I think Feng Shui can be your guide in making your personal space, with a few simple, inexpensive changes.Feng Shui will help you lighten a gloomy room by providing instruction on how to employ multidirectional light systems. Feng Shui can’t solve aesthetic problems based on structural design flaws incorporated into the architecture Feng Shui uses its scheme of arrangement to diminish or hide the flaws.