There are people who devote significant hours each week to podcast listening, sometimes while commuting or driving, sometimes while exercising or walking, sometimes while performing less-than fully engaging work or household tasks. They can consume a lot of podcast listening hours. Not me.
I do listen to a podcast here or there, primarily when someone says, “Bill, you really need to listen to this one.” I am usually rewarded, so that has remained my operating mode. Recently, someone made one of those enthusiastic recommendations, so I listened to “About Place” the MillerKnoll podcast hosted by my long-standing friend Ryan Anderson. Ryan is the MillerKnoll vice president of global research and planning, and he and his guest were discussing a recent workplace project. Among a raft of interesting issues they addressed, they delved into a sidebar about the need to support collaboration, and drawing the important distinction between synchronous and asynchronous collaboration. They were referencing synchronous collaboration, what we conventionally called meetings, and asynchronous collaboration, exemplified by collaborative document development or idea sharing (often supported by online technology tools) in which the collaborators contribute their ideas in varying sequences and not concurrently. That whole conversation got me thinking, not a bad outcome at all for a podcast, really.
For decades, when discussions about workplace design moved into the planning phase, the primary ways to structure the conversation and thinking centered on two fundamental workplace behavioral categories: concentration and collaboration. There was a sense, perhaps correctly cast, that these two categories embodied the vast majority of work typologies. How much work will people have to perform that requires concentration, thus requiring a measure of quiet and privacy and focus, and how much of their time will require dedicated space to perform that concentrated work? This would be in contrast with the question of how much collaborative work would be required of that same work force, how much time for meetings, and for brainstorming sessions, and for group conversations and presentations and deliberations. These two polarities seemed to be the defining categories for shaping workplace design.
Setting aside, just for now and for the sake of this column, the issue of concentrated work and its types and requirements and varieties, it seems like our industry and profession would benefit from a more detailed parsing of collaboration itself. How does it happen and how would that impact the types of spaces that are designed to effectively support high-performance collaboration in the organizations of today and tomorrow? It seems like we need to get beyond just these two polarities. So, some starting thoughts on collaboration.
First, there appears to be multiple basic types of collaboration, and here’s at least three. As Ryan Anderson discussed in his podcast conversation, some collaboration is synchronous, and some is asynchronous. Time, place, and technology each render those types of collaboration distinctly different, and thus requiring entirely different physical workplaces to optimally support them. One type of collaboration is not necessarily more effective than the other, each may be important contributors at different moments to success, but they unmistakably require different workplace support.
Related to but not the same, another type of collaboration specifically involves place or location. Is the collaboration in-person/face-to-face or is it mediated by some technology, misnamed remote collaborations? We have all learned that collaborations having everyone in the same physical space are vastly different from collaboration via a conference call, or a video link. And, as if we needed more complexity, some collaborations are mixed: a gathering of people in one place joined by a smattering of others joining via phone line or video display. All of these formats and combinations will be with us for the foreseeable future and how these collaborations will transpire must clearly be a factor in designing workplaces that effectively support their success. We have all experienced far too many of these situations that have been unmitigated disasters. Can you hear me now?
A final type of collaboration is just the general category of formal or informal collaborations.
By this I mean is it a planned and structured meeting, complete with pre-work, an agenda, work tools, and skilled facilitation. Or is it a serendipitous grouping of colleagues that just happened to grab a coffee at a random moment and the group ends up uncovering and developing an exciting new idea or initiative or product? Either are equally legitimate forms of collaboration, but each has a very different set of workplace design needs. In addition, we have come to understand that the informal collaborations can provide the potential for significant value in the workplace.
In addition to better understanding different types of collaboration (and these musings are merely a beginning, there may be a book in here), it is also crucial to understand the complex variety of components that comprise collaboration (had enough alliteration yet?) These components would be elements such as:
Group Size — small or large or in between, not enough attention is paid to the impact of the number of collaborators on an overall group work dynamic, and certainly it makes an outsized impact on the workspace and its configuration.
Participant Roles — who is contributing, what positions or responsibilities do they bring to the effort, who reports to whom, which teams or departments have joint responsibilities, etc., all these factors can impact the collaboration and how it unfolds.
Process and Structure — ground rules and parameters for the work can be established in advance, or developed by the group as the collaboration begins; regardless, how the work process itself is defined and understood by all the participants will impact the conversations, and ultimately the results of the collaboration.
Tools and Technology — there is no underestimating the impact of tools and technology on the success of collaborations; these tools can be incredible assets or unmitigated disasters, so great care must be taken in their selection, preparation, and contributions; again, there is likely an entire book on this topic.
Outcome Definitions — somewhat related to the process and structure component is the overarching reason for the collaboration to even be taking place; the desired output and outcome guides the work of the group and shapes the collaborations in fundamental ways.
These sorts of examinations of the nature and form of collaborations, only a starting point, seem to me an essential ingredient to formulating a robust understanding of how to design workplaces that become desirable destinations for working together. Blended with spaces that enable concentrated work, a more complete grasp of the act of collaborating will serve us all well.