The Economic Club of Grand Rapids recently hosted the senior leadership of Haworth to share with their membership the company’s outlook on the industry that plays such a significant role in the economy of West Michigan and its social fabric. It seems fitting that in the wake of the acquisition of Steelcase by HNI, it would be timely to hear from a family-held, high-impact corporation contributing significantly to an industry with such deep roots in the area. For those who attended that session, the insights from Matthew Haworth, chairman of the board of directors, and Franco Bianchi, president and CEO, did not disappoint.
True to my irrepressible nature, I am focusing on one insightful comment from Franco Bianchi, at least insightful for me. Franco said about the company he leads, “Our target is work as a verb.” He was contrasting that notion of work as a verb with the concept of work as a place. It’s a powerful statement coming from a company that designs and manufactures products to be used in work as a place. Work as a place, in the context of parts of speech classifications, is a noun, by its nature a more static element. The Haworth CEO seemed to be saying that it was more important to consider work as a verb, an action word, a dynamic element and activity. It is tempting to blow by his distinction as likely true but not all that profound. I disagree.
In this post-pandemic era, a good deal of focus in our industry has been directed toward work as a place, the debate about the need for and relevance of company offices and workplaces, the comparative value and merits of working from home or other remote settings, the controversial stances of some companies about the requirements for their people to return to the office, at least on certain minimal or designated days, again a place-based focus. And in too many places, in too many conversations and discussions this remains the central question… where should people be working? It’s not the central question.
The central questions, not singular as there are certainly more than one, are decidedly not about work as a noun, a place or a thing, but work as a verb, an activity; or perhaps more completely, a series of activities, that series of activities both interrelated and interdisciplinary. For a visual, let’s consider the notion of working, not work as a thing but working as a set of activities, as a sort of Rubik’s cube. This metaphor may be more appropriate than we know in view of the level of complexity involved in solving the challenge, but not impossible. And here’s an even more explicit overlay of work on that metaphor of the Rubik’s cube. The physical cube, remember, has six sides each with a corresponding color that must be aligned to solve the puzzle. Perhaps the six colors could be represented in a solution for work-as-a-verb by concepts such as:
- People — there is no idea more central to work as a verb than the actors in the process; organizations invest massively and increasingly in their people, even in the days of artificial intelligence; any discussion of work as a verb must be founded upon the people performing the activity of work; who are they, what do they do, what do they need, what is their connectedness to the organization, their sense of belonging?
- Purpose — second in import only to the actual workers is the “why,” the meaning and objective of the activity; and it has two primary focal points — the organizational purpose of the work activity and the individual meaning and significance of the activity for the people performing it; two sides of a very important coin.
- Process — the next side of the cube of work as a verb are the tasks and their sequence and nature. And again, at least two categories of activity emerge: the actions performed by individuals themselves and the interactions and collaborations among fellow staffers.
- Tools — only having parsed the first three sides of the cube can there be a consideration of the devices and tools that assist work as a verb. Those tools are changing at rapidly increasing rates, especially the digital ones; however, it is important not to neglect tools that may seem old-school or conventional. For example, writable display surfaces prototyping and modeling objects, etc.
- Culture — though significantly complex to understand and describe the culture in which work as a verb happens is a crucial ingredient to both align as well as leverage, one that is getting ever-increasing attention by workplace strategists and interior architects. The variables are multiple and interrelated, yet the impact is nearly impossible to underestimate.
- Places — finally, the physical setting for work as a verb, the other sides of the cube already thoroughly considered, is the final twist to complete the puzzle’s solution; the most thoughtful designers and interior architects have already discovered that the actual design of the place for work falls strategically into place only when it occurs in the context of all the earlier conceptual considerations above.
Since this discussion began with a focus on parts of speech, specifically a verb form, the conclusion will fittingly settle there. Perhaps it would benefit all of us if work as a noun were replaced with work as a verb form called a participle, working. All you grammarians will immediately suggest that the participle can sometimes function as an adjective, but it can also stand alone as a verb form.
To situate this discussion of working using that verb form — working — might help remind us of the insight from Franco Bianchi: that working is a multi-dimensional activity, a verb, and working as a verb is the proper foundational focus when we begin considering the configuration of the workplace and how they can best serve the people who need them to function so much better than ever.