Work Tumbler

Bill Wittland

Ever hear of a rock tumbler? Until recently, me neither, but it turns out to be one of the more common methods and tools for polishing stones. Hereā€™s how it works.Ā 

A rock tumbler is a cylinder into which you place stones to be polished (see the photo). Typically, you add to that mixture of rocks a solution composed of an abrasive substance and a liquid (usually water), then turn on the machine. The circular movement of the cylinder and the friction between the rocks converge to create polished stones, their texture determined by both the stones themselves and the abrasive solution you selected. By now youā€™re asking, ā€œwhy should I care about how a rock tumbler polishes stones?ā€ You should care, I submit, because it may be one of the strongest rationales for investing in an office workplace, both for companies investing their real estate resources and for workers investing their time.Ā 

Iā€™ve been thinking about the rock tumbler as a metaphor for collaborative work. Certainly, a good measure of our work today is solitary, but increasingly the most important office work activities require significant amounts and degrees of collaboration. The rock tumbler is, Iā€™d suggest, an insightful metaphor.Ā 

To begin, polishing stones in a rock tumbler requires that you know a decent amount about the right mixture of stones, which types and which sizes will produce the desired polished effect, and in the elapsed time you have. What an excellent way to think about the people component of the office workplace. No, not brainless rocks, but the right blend of personality types and sizes, skill sets and capabilities, dispositions and styles, knowledge reservoirs and thinking skills. Combining the right mix of people at the outset, whether as a company or a department or a team, is the bedrock starting point for creating successful collaboration models. This may be the fundamentally most important mission of any organizational leadership today… the right mix of people.Ā 

Another significant factor in the resulting outcome of polishing rocks in a tumbler is the abrasive substance, the ā€œgritā€, that is added to the rock tumbler. This abrasive material is one of the key elements that produce the polished stones, as it creates just the right amount of rub and friction. We are used to thinking about friction in the office workplace as something to be eliminated, or at least minimized. What if we saw friction as a creative force, a force to be welcomed and regulated and used for its polishing capabilities, not rocks this time but ideas and programs and products? What if the office workplace was enlivened with just the right amount of abrasive ā€œgritā€ that leveraged friction for good instead of destruction, or at least avoidance?Ā 

Now, this advocacy for friction might rub some folks the wrong way, right? We default to thinking about and wanting our organizations and processes to be smooth, but what if you only get to a state of smooth, or polished in this case, by using the power of friction? Friction as part of a collaborative process might look like allowing or even requiring unexpected ideas to take center stage, or the friction might involve combining diverse or competing personalities and challenging them to cooperate, or the friction could include something as simple as a demanding deadline that exerts some creative pressure. Using friction positively in these sorts of ways likely requires some careful and precision assessments… what type of friction, how much, for how long, what force… the same precision assessments necessary for rock polishing.Ā 

The stones and abrasive material for rock polishing would not succeed without the place for it all to happen. Ah, we finally come to place. That cylinder in the rock tumbler holds it all together, provides the limitations and the protection and the proximity for the polishing to occur. Think, for a moment, about the office workplace as that sort of cylinder. The metaphor applies pretty well. The workplace needs to set some limits, provide some physical and psychological safety, and bring together the right people in a setting that is conducive to polishing. Like that cylinder, the workplace needs to hold the people and the processes and the substances together. Iā€™m guessing that when it comes to polishing, the form and attributes of the cylinder for the rock tumbler are precisely calculated. So, the workplace. Think of the many elements.Ā 

Finally, the rock tumbler polishes stones powered by motion. The powered movement of the rotating cylinder is the force that enables the rocks and the grit and the friction to wear away debris and create polished surfaces. We might ask, what energy forces and dynamics are we intentionally employing in the workplace to create polished work from collaborations? How are we generating that energy and force? Whatā€™s its source and how do we ensure that it is continuing to flow among our teams and groups? An immobile rock tumbler gets nothing done.Ā 

The extension of this metaphor of polishing in a rock tumbler for our modern office workplace is predicated on the core belief that polished rocks are, in fact, valuable and desirable. It might be essential to ask, at this point, is polished work what we really want to emerge from our office workplaces? What does polished work look like? Are we willing to invest in the people and places and processes to use human collaboration to create high-gloss, valuable outcomes? There are a lot of questions posed here, and they require answering.Ā 

It all comes down to how much we believe in the importance of collaboration in the workplace. Bottom line, no rocks get polished in isolation, without friction and movement.