Category: Workspace Innovation

A couple months ago, I had the opportunity to do a quick tour of Shipt’s Birmingham headquarters with its new CEO, Kelly Caruso, and her team.

Kelly is a Leadership Birmingham classmate of mine and fellow Minnesotan. She took the reigns of Shipt shortly after Target acquired the company and then willingly relocated down south to keep Shipt’s HQ in the Ham.   Thankfully, she is quite literally warming to Alabama and we are all thrilled with Shipt’s commitment to our city!

The John Hand Building

Shipt has two major operations in Birmingham.  Originally, the company opened on the ground floor of the historic John Hand Building in a former bank branch space.  This physical space is spectacular with double height ceilings, marble floors  and lots of light.  Shipt preserved the original teller lines (complete with foot imprints in the marble at each teller station, carved by decades of bank customers waiting to transact) and bank vaults, which are now used as conference rooms.

The space is built out densely with almost no private offices.  Rather, the company chose to use benching solutions with sit/stand option to create a flexible and egalitarian culture.

When Shipt outgrew the available office space at the John Hand Building, Shipt leased space two blocks away in a high rise office building built in the 1980s.  It has been renamed Shipt Tower, so shortly Shipt will have its name atop two signature buildings in downtown Birmingham.

Shipt Tower

The buildout at Shipt Tower definitely echoes the feel of the space the John Hand Building, with lots of natural light, benching, white walls and pops of Shipt’s trademakr green color. In addition, there are numerous areas designed to facilitate small team meetings and impromptu collaboration.

All Shipt spaces feature something unique (at least in Birmingham) to Shipt – a live video conference between the break rooms of Shipt’s San Francisco and Birmingham offices.  This enables employees to be in the break room at any time of day and “run into” their West Coast colleagues grabbing a sparkling water.  Such a great way to build a connection!

 

What does the headquarters of a hip and growing women’s wear retailer look like?

Not surprisingly, it looks pretty inviting. And from me, a self-professed lover of hospitable and welcoming office spaces, this is the ultimate compliment.  Who wouldn’t want their office to “invite” employees in, rather than demand their presence?

Warm and Soulful

During a visit to Minneapolis last month, I toured the offices of Evereve and I didn’t want to leave.  Designed by Studio BV in tandem with Evereve’s internal design team, the vision was “warm and soulful” and from my perspective, it was spot on.

Built in a traditional (i.e. somewhat dated but well-located) building in Edina, the offices feel very contemporary and modern.  The architects started by removing the dropped ceilings and most of the interior walls to leave the space open, airy and filled with light.

The Welcome

As you walk off the elevators onto the Evereve floor, you are greeted by a pink neon sign that says “with heart” – the greeting with which Evereve’s founder signs all correspondence.  You then walk into an open lobby with casual seating arranged on a Persian rug.

The backdrop of the lobby is not a wall but a beautiful navy bookcase filled with both photo props and books.  And, the bookcase serves double duty as a lending library for employees!

Hot Mama Cafe

Behind the navy bookcase lies a stunning conference room with large windows that look over the city.

Walking through the lobby, you enter Hot Mama Cafe, which recalls Evereve’s former brand name.  This large kitchen serves double-duty as an employee break area as well as a venue for employee and customer events.  Because it is a full kitchen with both a stove and an oven, employees have started “lunch shares” where a different group member cooks lunch for the share group daily.

Much of the balance of the 24,000 square foot space is open work area housing the 90+ employees that call it home.  While there are only four private offices, there are plenty of phone booths and small huddle rooms as well as photo studios, creative team spaces and a mother’s room.

A Nod to Retail

Unique to its retailer tenant, the space also includes a mock storefront window complete with mannequins.  This feature allows the merchandising and marketing team to play with different display ideas for the brand’s 87 stores across the country.  A small mock store interior was built to allow the team to plan layouts for store interiors as well.

Other thoughtful design touches include changing rooms in the photo studio.  And the receiving area where new shipments are received daily from vendors was given a door straight to the elevator lobby to minimize disruption to the lobby area of the space.

What can you and I take away from this space?

• You can build non-traditional space in a traditional building.
• Make your space work for your specific business as Evereve does with the mock storefronts and photo studio space.
• Reflect your company’s personality and encourage the culture you want to create. Evereve encourages their team to interact (the kitchen), grow (the library) and create (the open plan with low workstations and lots of collaboration space.) It doesn’t have to be expensive; it just needs to be well thought out.

I spent most of my twenties in Los Angeles enjoying some much needed sunshine (and grad school) after a childhood of Minnesota winters.  While Birmingham’s weather is much better than Minnesota’s, I still jumped at the opportunity to go back to sunny LA last month.  And although it was fun, Birmingham is not in jeopardy of losing me.

Los Angeles, I love and miss you but we aren’t getting back together.

Western Legal Leaders Council

The primary purpose of my LA visit was to speak at the inaugural meeting of the Western Legal Leaders Council.  This is a new group of law firm COOs from select firms west of the Mississippi put together by Catapult Growth Partners’ Steve Daitch and Irell & Manella’s Mark Hanson.

While I am sure I was the least distinguished of the meeting’s speakers, I was immensely grateful for the opportunity to share what I have learned about the law firm C suite and it’s monetary value to law firms.  (You can read my report on the topic here.)

If you have read my blog for any length of time, you know that any time I travel, I do my best to visit some cool spaces.  So, when I wasn’t attending the conference, I had the pleasure of touring Yahoo’s Silicon Beach campus, Google’s new campus inside the Spruce Goose hangar in Playa Vista, and The Honest Company’s space.

Yahoo!!!!

Yahoo, now owned by Verizon, occupies three buildings totaling ~88,000 rsf – each with the same basic footprint.  One building contains workspace and a large cafeteria and fitness center.  One building contains workspace for Ryot Studio, Xbox and Yahoo Sports.  And the last building contains film studios for Yahoo Sports.  In which they were recording.  With a famous athlete.  But wouldn’t let me in.  Sigh.

All of Yahoo’s buildings have glass exteriors, are two stories tall and have extremely high and open ceilings.  The exterior spaces are equally airy and light filled.  In fact, there is a beautiful green courtyard between the three buildings with abundant outdoor seating.

One of my favorite things seen at the Yahoo buildings? The booths they incorporated for small informal meetings.  While I realize booths are all the rage in the modern office buildout, these are unique in that one of the “open” walls is not actually open.  Instead, it is a glass wall and the booth seating goes around that side.  The result is more seating and better audio privacy without compromising transparency and light.

Another view:

Did Verizon’s acquisition of Yahoo change anything in the space?  Well, it’s still 100% open plan, but let’s just say the “free snack shelves” are now basically shelves.  Don’t feel too bad for the employees; breakfast and lunch are still complimentary.

The Honest Company

Next it was on to The Honest Company.  Its space is as soothing and Zen as you would anticipate given the company’s name and its famous founder.  It boasts tons of light and natural materials – from various woods to wool rugs to plants.

The Honest Company’s employees each have a dedicated workspace which they are welcome to adorn as they see fit.  The desk areas are very simple and open but (like Gensler’s offices in Washington DC), they seem full of life and energy.  The best analogy I can come up with is it feels like you are working in one of your most hip twenty-something friend’s apartments.

And if The Honest Company employees need a change of scenery, they can go work in one of the beautiful library-like common spaces or on the rooftop patio.

Google

My last visit was to Google and — no disrespect to Yahoo and The Honest Company — my mind was blown.

As mentioned above, it was built in the former hangar for Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose.  Because it is a historic building, Google had to build ten feet from the interior face of all exterior walls and ceilings.  As a result, all of the floors “float” in the building.

There are many nods to the building’s past, including this stunning ceiling installation in the shape of the Spruce Goose.

In addition, Howard Hughes’ original office at the center of the highest portion of the building was preserved and converted into a conference room.

The space features amenities including a cafeteria with an in-house chef who gives regular Food Talks to interested employees and competes in competitions with other Google chefs nationally.  There is a dreamy fitness center complete with personal trainers and numerous group exercise classes.  And there is a nap room, meditation room, mother’s room, bike room (where you can borrow a bike or store your own), coffee bar, and massage room.

No, the massages aren’t free but employees accrue Google Bucks as rewards that can be spent on massages and other things.

Google did something whimsical and brilliant with the future growth space that has yet to be furnished with desks and employees.  Above the space, on a floating walkway sits a station where Googlers can get paper to build an airplane which they can then use to hit a target on the floor below.

In another such growth space, Googlers can write comments, suggestions or complaints on a piece of paper and then try to toss that paper into the bins below.  Notice the size of the opening on the complaints bin!

Other trip highlights?

SoulCycle

I have always wondered if SoulCycle would live up to the all the fuss about it.  Since there was one a mile from my Santa Monica hotel, I paid the $20 first-timer’s fee and attended a class.  And? It felt like every other spin class I have taken from a good teacher.  Which is fine except that regulars pay $40 for a 45 minute class.  What in the what?  If this class does not make my tushie look like a tulip afterwards, I am not paying almost $1 per minute to ride a bike at 85% of my max heart rate.  Nope.

From a real estate perspective, the space reflects planning genius.  The studio itself is packed (some would say crammed) with bikes such that stretching your arms could be considered inappropriate touching by the people on neighboring bikes.  (Note that this coziness did not seem to bother the other attendees.  Some appeared to enjoy the energy it created.)

Walls in the lobby are lined with lockers and benches, and small but nice locker rooms are tucked behind the reception desk.  The whole space is white with bright yellow splashes which make it feel bigger than it actually is.  Way to maximize space while minimizing real estate costs.

Experience Value: C-.  Space Design: A+.

drybar

I also gave drybar a whirl one morning.  While a $49 blowout sounds indulgent on my part, I am calling it market research.  You see, my company is working on some large mixed-use developments and I can’t believe — given Birmingham’s reputation as the land of the “done” hair — that we have zero drybars here.

The overall drybar experience is pampering.  The space was incredibly well-designed to be both efficient and purposeful.  There is a mid-sized rectangular front room with a central bar area around which all of the clients sit.  The hairdressers work behind the clients while the clients sit and read, work or stare at their phones.  Behind the front room is a small shampoo room with eight stations efficiently arranged to make the best use of the small space.  Like SoulCycle, A+ for space design and minimizing real estate costs.

My only reservation about my drybar experience is that I clearly don’t have thick or curly enough hair to justify paying someone else $49 to blow it dry – especially knowing I am going to have to wash it the next morning after the above-described SoulCycle workout.

I DO think drybar would be an amazing addition to Birmingham’s retail scene and am now actively recruiting the company to the area!

Social Hour(s)

Lastly, while in LA, I reconnected with a bunch of law school classmates. One of them, Robin Gerard, is now a CMO for Orange County-based Stradling Yocca.  I could not have had more fun catching up with her.  She single-handedly helped me drag my aforementioned tushie across the finish line of two different LA Marathons “back in the day.”   Our marathon mantra: “Only one person can complain at any one time.”

Robin had tons of knowledge on all things marketing and business development and gave me great insight prior to my speaking engagement.  Between her and my Western Legal Leaders’ Dinner tablemate, Catapult’s Doug Johnson, I felt like I went back to Birmingham smarter.  What a trip!

I freaking love to read.  And my two favorite non-fiction subjects are company culture and the legal industry. (Shocker.)

I thought it would be fun to ask the people I admire running non-profits, companies and law firms here in Birmingham what their favorite books on culture are.  They did not disappoint!

Some books I have read; others are now on my To Read list on Goodreads; a few are on their way from Amazon to Casa Turner.

Enjoy!

Erich Durlacher, President & Strategy Partner, Burr Forman, recommends three books, all of which I have read and loved.  They are Smart Collaboration by Heidi Gardner, Give and Take by Adam Grant, and Start with Why by Simon Sinek.  Clearly Erich and I have similar reading taste, so Erich, please keep the recommendations coming.

Greg Curran, Chairman, Maynard Cooper & Gale, recommends The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni.  In a review of this book, Publishers Weekly recaps Lencioni’s four steps to organizational health: “build a cohesive leadership team, create clarity, overcommunicate clarity, and reinforce clarity.”  This seems like the perfect approach for a law firm!

JW Carpenter, Executive Director, Birmingham Education Foundation (& former lawyer) loved Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humility by Kim Malone Scott.  JW says “celebratory and constructive feedback is crucial to success but very hard to deliver in an effective, honest, and human way. Radical Candor outlines how you can do that and why it is the right thing to do for your culture and your people.”

April Benetollo, CEO, Momentum and former CMO, Daxko, raves about Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success by Kevin Freiberg. Per April “though it was written 20 years ago, NUTS! is the story of how Southwest Airlines put employees and culture at the very center of their success. It was a revolutionary approach at the time, and it has proven the test of time. When people are treated as members of a team rather than employees, when they are recognized for their contributions (no matter where they are in the chain of operations), and when every single person knows precisely what the business values most, they will go the extra mile to do what it takes handle just about anything.”

Benetollo also loved The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace by Ron Friedman and Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t by Simon Sinek.

Jake McKenzie, CEO, Intermark, says his favorite company culture book is Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity by Charles Duhigg.  What will you learn from Smarter Faster Better?  Employees are more motivated if they believe that others recognize and appreciate what they think, feel, and do. I read and loved this book and its predecessor, The Power of Habit, as well.

Teresa Chamblee Shufflebarger, Healthcare Strategist and former Market Chief Strategy Officer, Brookwood Baptist Health, has three recommendations:  The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t by Robert Sutton, The 4 Disciplines of Execution – Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Chris McChesney and Sean Covey, and Deep Work by Cal Newport.

Aside — One of my favorite quotes ever is by Cal Newport: “From my experience, the most common trait you will consistently observe in accomplished people is an obsession with completion.  Once a project falls into their horizon, they crave almost compulsively to finish it.”  Probably a favorite of mine because it validates my compulsivity!

Michael Eady, President, Knight Eady, and his partners have created a workspace renowned for its culture.  Eady credits some lessons he learned from Start with Why  as well as Tribes by Seth Godin and The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni.  His favorite, however, is Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh.  “Delivering Happiness might be the most practical story-based book I read on culture. Tribes is super short and very practical.  Big fan of Seth Godin.”

I echo Michael’s sentiments about Seth Godin and cannot say enough good things about Delivering Happiness.  Tony Hsieh is a force when it comes to culture and I had the pleasure of witnessing firsthand what his culture-building did for the city of Las Vegas.  Count me a raving fan.  Also, shoes.

Tony Summerville, Founder and CEO, Fleetio, is a fan of High Output Management by Andy Grove, Measure What Matters by John Doerr, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord and the previously mentioned Radical Candor by Kim Scott.  Given Fleetio’s rapid growth and distributed workforce, Summerville must be doing something very right so his recommendations hold weight.

And, while Summerville was the only person to mention Measure What Matters in response to this specific request, I know Michael Eady and JW Carpenter are also big fans of the book so it is zooming to the top of my To Read list.

John Boone, Founder and Principal, Orchestra Partners, recommends Understanding Michael Porter by Joan Margretta.  Boone and Orchestra Partners are laser-focused on development strategy right now so this makes sense.

My favorite restaurateur, Nick Pihakis, CEO, Pihakis Restaurant Group, has learned a lot about building a culture in the service industry.  He recommends Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer and The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Company by Joseph Michelli.  “These [books] to me represent the good and the bad cultures that can control our relationships with each other and with our guest in the service world.”

See for yourself what Nick has learned by visiting one of his restaurants: Mile End Deli, Little Donkey, Hero Donuts, Rodney Scott’s BBQ and Big Bad Breakfast.

Lastly, my culture hero locally, Lawrence Sheffield, Founder and CEO of non-profit Magic City Woodworks.  I asked him for his recommendations and I loved his response.  “I am a visual and audible learner. My favorite company cultural pieces are actually podcasts.”  How I Built This with Guy Raz, Patagonia episode, Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, Defining Your Organizational Culture. 2 part episode. And Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman, Netflix Episode.

I know many people who, like Lawrence, learn better by listening.  Audio books and podcasts are the greatest thing for these people, but they are also a great option for people who spend a lot of time in their cars or at the gym.  Love it! (More podcast recommendations here.)

Bringing it all home to real estate

Many new companies design their space to support their desired culture, and frequently mature companies renovate or relocate to better embrace a culture shift.  As stated by Jacob Morgan in The Employee Experience Advantage, ”Organizations that create truly COOL workspaces genuinely understand how and why employees work and design spaces that reflect those ways of working.” (I am not recommending this book although it had some good points. Poor book editing, IMO.  Sorry, Jacob.)

Office space can clearly have an effect on organizational culture.  But you have to define that culture first.  These books can help.

Oh, and before I leave you, my company culture recommendation is The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath. In a nutshell: Transitions should be marked, milestones commemorated and pits filled.  Send me an email and I’ll send you my summary.

 

 

When I started at Corporate Realty last year, I was given a lovely large office, albeit one with no ceiling and one full glass wall.  Result: quiet and visual privacy are arguably absent.  I also inherited a brokerage partner who I have written about previously, Emily Byrd.

Emily had a workstation of her own with two large screens she could use when she docked her laptop.  However, our co-workers quickly tired of my and Emily’s loud conversations across my aforementioned ceiling-less office to her workstation.  So, notwithstanding the existence of her private workstation, we quickly found that Emily spent 95% of her time in the Corporate Realty offices in my office.

Here’s the situation.  I’m twenty plus years into my professional career.  I do work that requires me to be on the phone a lot.  I also do work that requires intense focus and concentration.  But I have a partner that shares my transaction workload.  We partner on Every. Single. Deal.

What This Looks Like

So now it’s our office.  And while we have a large desk, we don’t have enough space or outlets for Emily to have both her screens on the desk so she has sacrificed that perk to co-locate.  I have sacrificed a little personal space, but honestly, work really isn’t about personal space, right?

And most of the time, this arrangement works really well for us.  Emily and I each have different strengths, so it is incredibly convenient to be able to look across the desk and ask each other for help/advice/pep talks in real time.  We both operate at about the same level of neatness, so a few paper stacks on the desk don’t really bother either of us.

I Mean What This REALLY Looks Like

The Why

We also learn a lot  from each other.  I have a few more years in the business than Emily and a legal back ground, so I can teach her from my experience.  Emily, on the other hand, is incredibly resourceful and can find out anything about anyone or any property.  (As far as I know, she mostly uses this power for good.)  And she has been kind enough to share her knowledge about how to do this with me.

We also learn through the process of teaching each other.  Sometimes when you have to teach something to someone, it makes you process your thoughts in order to put together a more understandable explanation for that person.  In the process, you come to a better understanding of the subject.

Taking Off the Rose-Colored Glasses

Some of the challenges of a shared office? I don’t have Emily’s 34 year old metabolism so if she doesn’t stop eating junk food  at our desk 10 hours a day, I am going to be a much bigger girl this time next year.

Also, neither Emily nor I use a landline, primarily because the nature of our jobs means we are out and about a ton and cell phones are the easiest way to reach either of us at any given time.  Emily has taught me the beauty of using my mobile phone’s speaker option so I can (1) easily take notes on a call and (2) not have to recap everything to Emily the second I get off the phone with a client or landlord.  However, there are times I don’t FREAKING WANT TO HEAR WORDS ANY MORE  so occasionally, I might nicely ask Emily to take her phone off speaker.  Nicely.

The Bottom Line: Sharing With Emily Is Better Than Not Sharing With Emily

A little side benefit to our shared office scenario is the obvious cost savings to our company created by improved density.

Are we the first to do this?  Definitely not.  I believe the practice originated in the U.K. where experienced lawyers shared their offices with apprentices so that the apprentice could learn from the master all day, every day.

But in the U.S., we tend to see more companies approach the office/no office decision as binary.  Either someone warrants a private office or they warrant a workstation.  Rarely is the shared office given consideration.  Maybe it’s time to rethink that.  It works for us.

You cannot put people in a crappy cubicle farm and hang signs that say “change the world.”  Absolutely nothing will change and those people’s desire to come to the office will diminish day by day.

This wisdom was shared by Shopify founder Tobi Lutke on the Knowledge Project podcast last week when the podcast host asked Lutke about Shopify’s offices.  Lutke said he thinks it is valuable to have his employees working in a place full of great design.  Or, as Deion Sanders once put it, “If you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play good. If you play good, they pay good.”

Lutke put into words something that I have been emphasizing with clients a lot lately.  It seems that frequently when a company or firm is considering moving offices or refurbishing space, the decision makers are occupants of exterior offices.  Their biggest concern is commonly the happiness of the other occupants of external offices.

Usually unintentionally, they forget to think about the experience of the people occupying interior spaces – the parts of the office that are often deprived of natural light.  These spaces many times are, at best, generic and, at worst, dated and soul-crushing in design.

What I believe Lutke is saying is that if you put people in space with great design, it sends a message to those people that they are valued and the company expects great things of them.  By contrast, if you put them in a “crappy cubicle farm,” you risk sending the message that their jobs are unimportant and further risk those people internalizing that message.  Like almost everything else in life, you get in what you put out.

This doesn’t mean you have to spend a ton of money on space.  It does mean that you have to give thought to the workplace experience of each employee.  For instance, putting glass walls on exterior offices not only provides an open approachable feeling to the exterior offices; it also allows natural light to filter to the interior of the space to the benefit of the people working there.

Per Harvard Business Review, a survey of 1,614 North American employees found that natural light is the most craved workplace attribute.  “47% of employees admit they feel tired or very tired from the absence of natural light or a window at their office, and 43% report feeling gloomy because of the lack of light.”[i]

I occasionally hear an exterior office occupant lament the perceived loss of privacy associated with glass walls or sidelites.  I suggest that their loss of privacy needs to be weighed against the general well-being and productivity of the interior office occupants.  Could a frosted strip on the glass restore a level of privacy while not jeopardizing the benefits of natural light?  Jackpot!

Other tactics for improving all space: plants, comfortable soft seating areas, and well stocked kitchens and break rooms.  Include these concepts and send a message to all of your employees that you value them and the contribution you know they can make to your company.  They will probably perform, if not exceed, expectations.

[i] “The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light” by Jeanne C. Meister.  Harvard Business Review.  January 3, 2018.

I sometimes spend half my workday in the what we call “The War Room” — the most used room in our office.  And with good reason.  It is the most functional and productive space I have ever had the opportunity to work in.

The good news? It’s functionality is easily copied.  So here is the skinny on this magical, get sh*t done, space.

The Scene

Before I give you all the details, let me paint the picture of our office. Our office is located in a former bread factory that has been redeveloped into sleek, modern office space. The space is wide open with offices that are only defined by glass front DIRTT walls and no ceilings. It is open, inviting and everything you want modern office space to be.

Towards the rear of our office is the War Room. The room is built from DIRTT walls with floor to ceiling whiteboard writing surface on 3 of the 4 walls and sliding glass doors flanked with glass on the 4^th wall. The glass doors open out to our office kitchen and bar area.

Inside the room is a long rectangular table, flush against one wall, that seats 7 people comfortably.  The table is counter height with tele-data hidden underneath. High swivel chairs surround the table, each chair featuring a foot rest for comfort. Above the table is a 60” tech-connected presentation screen (that acts as a widescreen during the Final 4 every year).

The Vital Ingredient

So, what makes this all so magical?  Probably the most important feature is the tech-connected screen.  It allows us to quickly, and easily, share screens to discuss development plans, review numbers and go through agendas in real time and update accordingly. Imagine – you are meeting internally to discuss status on all developments. One person shares their laptop screen with the meeting’s agenda pulled up, and takes notes on the agenda as the meeting progresses.

None of this would be possible if our culture did not emphasize technological connectivity so greatly.  Everyone in the office has a laptop and all of us are encouraged/expected to be able to quickly share our screens when the need presents itself.

The size of the screen relative to the room is also key.  It is large enough that it can easily be seen from any seat at the table.  Further, because the screen occupies one end of the table, no one is ever sitting with their back to the screen.

Stand Up

If you have been at your desk all day and need a break from sitting, the table is conveniently standing height.  This table height also somehow makes the room feel more like a workroom and less like a conference room.  As conference rooms are – at least for me – often associated with boring and soul-crushing meetings, this is a big plus.

Because we try to schedule large blocks of time for productive “heads down” work, we sometimes have two or three project meetings back to back on “meeting days.”  On those days, it is incredibly convenient to have a fully-stocked kitchen with snacks and drinks right outside the War Room so that we can easily get what we need without missing a beat.

The Formula

How can you create your own magically productive conference room?  Include the following:

• Large wall-mounted, tech-connected screen and a culture that encourages/expects people to learn how to use it;
• Stand-height table with counter height chairs to encourage sit or stand attendance;
• Seating on three sides of the table. The fourth side of the table is flush with the wall; and
• Easily accessible snacks, drinks, cocktails.  You decide.

I would love to hear your stories about other super-functional spaces in your offices, so please email them to me!