Space to think

As the pace of change and flow of information in our working lives increases and career paths become less linear, and the pressure to innovate becomes greater, we’re trying to navigate these challenges in working environments and cultures that are still geared to the practices of the previous industrial ages.

It’s interesting that only now we are referring to this latest industrial shift as the age of automation when arguably automation has always been with us. The Industrial Revolution brought with it the factory floor, a physical space where all workers could be seen from a single vantage point; employees’ actions were ‘automated’ with the assembly line process.

Then the information age — despite its creation of a raft of digital businesses — has in the main not transformed workplace structure and culture. We moved from factory floors to cubicles laid out on a grid, and then finally, open plan offices, filled with noise distracting stimuli. We kept the 9–5 — a hangover from the Industrial age when workers used to ‘punch the clock’ at the start and end of a shift.

So what happens when you blend the cognitive demands of an emerging industrial age (the need for people to demonstrate greater autonomy), with the restrictions on workers that are effectively cultural hangovers from the industrial revolution (the need to control humans by automating them)? The answer is burnout.

So far, the response to this challenge has been to place more pressure upon the individual — telling workers that the feelings they are having are all in their heads and that they need to change their mindsets to succeed.

It’s not the ‘mindset movement’ per se that is the problem — it’s the fact that designing our environment is arguably more important. Change does not only come from within.

After all, if we are constantly correcting our own minds, we don’t have the bandwidth to think about how our environment may be contributing to the issue — or even causing it. In a modern culture that believes it is meritocratic (it isn’t), the idea of being 100% responsible for our lives is not just a helpful thought experiment to use as a way to innovate, but instead a corporate mandate.

There is a third way: design your environment. Become a behavioural designer that is optimising for creativity. Then, cultural issues become design challenges, rather than exclusively personal ones.

Designing your environment is arguably the most empowering move in modern workplaces — it creates a triple win scenario for leaders — who reap the benefits of a more engaged workforce with more stable churn rates, for workers who enjoy the benefits of being in a space that supports their creativity and finally the business which grows as a result.

There is arguably a moral component to environmental design, especially for those in leadership positions. If company culture happens as a result of the behaviour of management, the higher up we are in the ‘food chain’, the greater the ripple down effect of our design prototypes on the behaviours of the people working in those companies.

In an age where the cognitive demands on us are growing exponentially — the aims of these prototypes should have one goal: to give modern workers space to think.

In a marketplace that, despite attempts at protectionism is still becoming more open and global, we need to position the UK to become a powerful force in business. We need to remember that businesses are just workplaces full of people thinking creatively, and to succeed we must give them the time and space to do so.

Related posts:

React.js is a powerful and popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces. If you’re new to React.js, some of the key concepts and features to learn include: By learning and understanding…

I would like to preface this piece with the fact that I’ve not read the original Little Women book or watched any of the previous adaptations. I have however tried my best to read as much as I can…

When a disaster or crisis hits a community, the public library often serves as a safe haven. Libraries provide a place of comfort, direction, normalcy, and resources to help guide recovery efforts…