The Biggest (And Toughest) Shift in Corporate America

HuffPost February 25, 2014

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We like to think these examples are as antiquated as an old rotary phone in our iPhone world, but unfortunately they are not.

Last week, I had an impactful and telling conversation with a colleague about one of his employees. It went something like this:

Colleague: "We had to cut him down to part time, because he seemed to think it was OK to come in at ten and leave at two."

Me: "Well, why didn't you just fire him?"

Colleague: "Because he's our best guy. He solves problems in hours that it takes days for the others to figure out."

Why is this employee being "punished" for being smart and efficient? Shouldn't this be rewarded? If he can do the work in hours that it takes days for others to do, shouldn't the employee reap the benefit, not just the employer?

Another friend calls from work when she has nothing to do. She is required to be there from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., so when the work runs out, she calls from her office phone to catch up. We like to think these examples are as antiquated as an old rotary phone in our iPhone world, but unfortunately they are not.

Our workplaces need to make the shift from owning our TIME to owning our RESULT.

Some forward-thinking companies have already begun the shift. The challenge to change comes from a long, and deeply rooted, feeling of obligation to our employers to punch the clock. Change is hard, and this shift will result in some of the most dramatic changes to our physical workspace and mindsets this century. How do we begin?

1.Learn from college campuses.
This study conducted in partnership between KI, a leading educational furniture provider, and HOK, one of the top architecture and design firms, takes a look at the college campus structure as a benchmark for workplace design. After all, if we only look at other workspaces, we are incestuously re-designing the same problems. In colleges and universities, professors give you an assignment with a due date. It is up to students to figure out where, when, and how to achieve the end result. Students naturally collaborate, innovate, and partner together without structure, and according to this study, "82% of companies experience new hires 'lost in transition'" which suggests our current workplace models are counter-intuitive to how students organically collaborate.

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