From Ignites (owned by the Financial Times).a daily publication for the Mutual Fund industry.

Firms Turn to Feng Shui to Foster Workplace Harmony 

By Beagan Wilcox Volz March 26, 2012

For many fund firm employees, striking up a conversation with the CEO or other top executives is very intimidating. But some firms are now trying to break down the barriers that typically exist between different levels and departments of employees — literally.

For example, rank-and-file workers and the CEO now sit at similar desks in an open floor plan at Russell Investments. In its new headquarters in Seattle, the firm no longer has individual offices. With its new work space, Russell is “taking away the traditional hierarchy that goes with an office” and putting the emphasis on one’s position or role, rather than on where one sits, says Alan Young, principal at NBBJ, the architecture firm that designed Russell’s new offices.

Through the open design, the firm seeks to encourage more interaction among all of its employees, ultimately aimed at greater creativity and innovation. Indeed, the basic premise of office designs with more open space is to provide a vehicle for people to communicate more freely, “without the encumbrance of offices, doors and walls,” Young says.

There’s a caveat, however. Simply putting everybody in one big open space usually does not create a good work environment. “Really, the key ingredient is that you provide a variety of workplace venues” that accommodate different kinds of work styles, Young says. To this end, Russell’s new offices have an assortment of smaller rooms, separate from formal conference rooms, for impromptu meetings or simply a private phone call in a comfy chair.

The idea of using the physical attributes of a workplace to foster productivity and innovation is not new. Steve Jobs reportedly nixed the idea of three separate buildings for Pixar: one with computer scientists, the second for animators and the third for everybody else. He also insisted that there be only two centrally located bathrooms in the entire Pixar studios. These decisions forced employees of all different backgrounds to mingle.

“And now you can talk to people at Pixar and they all have their ‘bathroom story.’ They all talk about the great conversation they had while washing their hands,” Jonah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works, recently told National Public Radio.

Financial services and law firms have tended to take a more conservative approach to their workplaces and employ less open space, “but we’re seeing a lot of transition in both of those market sectors,” says NBBJ’s Young.

Young also notes that there’s a lot of pressure emerging in the workplace to start catering to the millennial generation. Workers of this generation want multipurpose spaces where they can collaborate with their teams. Contrary to baby boomers and others, they don’t want offices.

“The idea of putting themselves in a box and shutting the door is so alien to them as a generation as a whole, and they don’t thrive in that type of environment,” says Young. “You better provide spaces that are dynamic” for millennials, he adds.

Columbia Management hasn’t eliminated individual offices, but like Russell, the firm made some big changes when it moved its headquarters early last year to new offices in the top six floors of 225 Franklin Street in Boston. The firm had been in three different locations and the move permitted its Boston-based employees to work in one building. In addition, Columbia had time to gut the floors and “get creative with the space,” says Amy Unckless, chief administrative officer

The firm had always wanted there to be more dialogue across the investment division. In its old buildings, the fixed-income and equities divisions were on different floors. In the new space, Columbia combined the equity and fixed-income trading floor. The firm also made sure the trading floor has intercoms and screens so that traders can communicate easily with the firm’s other trading floors around the world, says Unckless.

Columbia also wanted to foster more interaction among its operations group, as well as its internal sales desk. To do so, the firm decided to go with clusters of people working together in low cubicles. The level of the partitions on the cubicles vary depending on the work group; the legal team has slightly higher cubes for greater privacy, and the sales team has lower ones, says Unckless.

The new space has a perimeter of individual offices, but glass from floor to ceiling allows natural light to pour into the entire space. “One of the best features of the space is the light,” says Unckless.

American Funds also has used architectural design to encourage employees from different departments to mix. Its facility in Irvine, Calif., where the firm has more than 1,900 service center and tech support employees, was designed with this in mind, says company spokesman Chuck Freadhoff.

Six buildings form a U shape around a large central courtyard where people can be seen eating their lunch or tossing a Frisbee. The buildings are connected with covered walkways and the ground floor of each has a café and seating area. There’s also a central cafeteria.

“We want to foster interaction among the folks who work there,” says Freadhoff. “We want it to be the Capital community, not just a cubicle.”

The courtyard at American Funds’ Irvine campus serves as more than just a meeting place, according to at least one expert. Jennifer Kahnweiler, executive coach and leadership consultant, strongly encourages employees to get outside during the workday. “Much of our creativity comes when we’re not in the cubicle,” she says.

Kahnweiler, author of The Introverted Leader: Building on Your Quiet Strength, also emphasizes that firms that have opted for more open work spaces must also provide employees with more private rooms where they can work and think in a quiet environment, and encourage workers to use them. While some employees may not want such space, the introverts among us, who make up about 40% to 50% of the population, need those spaces to be productive, she says.

There needs to be enough of these kinds of rooms so that they don’t always have to be booked in advance. At a lot of companies, she says, people have to fight for a conference room because of their scarcity.

One of the points in our discussion: We live in such an extroverted, centric world that the people who are the talkers – whether it be in brainstorming sessions or in coaching itself do a real disservice to introverts when they fill in the sentences. I think that equation we’ve all heard as coaches, is that you should have the 80:20 rule, coaches speaking 20%. That should mirror a lot of conversations you’re having, when you’re trying to get the best out of the introverts in your organization, allow them the dignity of their own rhythm.

Actors like Streep prepare extensively to take us into the world of that character. Likewise, introverts often emphasize how much they prepare for meetings, calls, presentations, etc. so that they perform at their best ( a side note: Meryl Streep is an introvert like many actors).  Yet, despite careful preparation, you can’t always anticipate what is thrown at you.  Handling the moment sometimes trumps preparation.

In this clip of her recent  Golden Globes Acceptance Speech  a great actress is a normal human being. In the blush of winning and kissing her way up to the stage, Ms. Streep forgot her glasses. So how did she handle it? She was refreshingly real (they bleeped out the “Oh ____” ), cracked some jokes and complimented the other nominees (some even more than once:)

I loved her rambling, laughing performance where she played the character she knows best: herself.  Perhaps an extra glass of wine helped. Any scripted thank you she might have had was gone and there she was, like the rest of us, dealing with an “Oh ___” moment.  I will take that real performance over a carefully rehearsed acceptance speech any day.

I am impressed at my recent coaching clients who are highly successful in their fields but who continually seek to improve themselves. It is not that they are dissatisfied with their performance.  They could easily rest on their achievements. But like Dr. Gawande they seek continuous learning and improvement to become better versions of themselves.

He eloquently writes, ” The sort of coaching that fosters effective innovation and judgment, not merely the replication of technique, may not be so easy to cultivate. Yet modern society increasingly depends on ordinary people taking responsibility for doing extraordinary things: operating inside people’s bodies, teaching eighth graders algebraic concepts that Euclid would have struggled with, building a highway through a mountain, constructing a wireless computer network across a state, running a factory, reducing a city’s crime rate. In the absence of guidance, how many people can do such complex tasks at the level we require? With a diploma, a few will achieve sustained mastery; with a good coach, many could. We treat guidance for professionals as a luxury—you can guess what gets cut first when school-district budgets are slashed. But coaching may prove essential to the success of modern society.”

What is your coaching plan for 2012? How about asking a respected colleague to observe you and offer feedback?

I received an email from Nancy Crosby, a Group Manager at the IRS in Lansing Michigan who had attended my leadership program several years ago. Nancy told me about a piece in the Washington Post that “comments on inaccurate characterization and unfair stereotyping of introverts in government. It references a book by Steven L. Katz, author of Lion Taming, Working Successfully with Leaders, Bosses, and other Tough Customers.Apparently Mr. Katz argues the problem is that government attracts too many introverts, perpetuating “government of loners” who don’t want to rock the boat. In order to foster innovation, he recommends that agencies recruit extroverted personalities.”

The Washington Post writer, Alicia Mazzara, asked several government workers about their response to the question about why we don’t have more innovation in government. Their rebuttals are right on. We are not misanthropes, they said, and the lack of innovation is due more to a culture that discourages it than dimensions of introversion or extroversion. Carol Davison, a human resource specialist at the Department of Commerce said, “There is nothing wrong with us. We aren’t afraid of people, lacking in social skills, timid, super sensitive, or need to feel safe. We are introverts because we lose energy to social interactions, so we limit it.”

John Kosar, Client Manager, CCCi

Last week I had the pleasure of working with a fave introverted leader, John Kosar.   Presentation skills coach Kelly Vandever  who introduced us, once called him the “epitome of an introverted leader.”

John is a Client Manager with IT staffing firm, CCCi and his latest assignment is at the  The Southern Company, one of America’s largest generators of electricity.  He  has organized a number of well attended programs with technology leaders. and is committed to working with IT pros to help them succeed. On Halloween  his company hosted an appreciation luncheon for the teams of IT pros at the Southern Company and gifted each attendee with a copy of  The Introverted Leader. I spoke with them about why introverts are leaders, the 4 steps introverted leaders take to succeed and what we miss when we don’t tap into their strengths.

John recruits and retains all types of IT folks and knows the importance of developing strong communication and people skills. Check out these short video clips

John on why getting out from behind the computer is important.

John on how getting involved in user groups helps you be a better professional. 

I look forward to many more collaborations with introverted leaders like John Kosar who truly walk their talk.

Slave to an uncooperative GPS, I found myself driving 5 miles down a cow path to the next dirt road. Red barns shining in the sun, green grass shimmering and not a bathroom to be seen. As I alternated between slight panic and awe at nature’s splendor,  I wondered where the people had gone to in this twilight zone reality. There were houses and cars but not a person anywhere. I saw a tractor, a few kids selling pumpkins but no stores. There were billboards but definitely no nail salons. I finally saw a real road in the  distance and inhaled and exhaled  relief when I realized I actually might arrive before dark.

I rolled into town, even happy to find my hotel with the “No Dirty Workboots Inside” sign. I grabbed a sandwich in one of two restaurants in town before closing time at 8:00  p.m. and stumbled upon open mike night at a sweet little bar. Guitar music, friendly folks and a warm laid back feeling in this comfy small town.

The next day I found an eager and positive group of eight technical managers ready to learn, engage and support each other with their leadership challenges. Occasionally, talk of hunting, farming and drinking entered the room. The two days went by quickly (at least for me) and before leaving I told them they were the favorite class I had ever taught (in Coudersport!). We all laughed and I jumped into my Corolla with promises to stay in touch. I  made it back to the Buffalo airport armed with new directions (and a different GPS).

One of the many gifts of my work is the chance to travel.  It takes me outside the comfort zone of suburban Dunwoody, GA.   While that travel isn’t always glamorous how else could I meet wholesome people and learn about hunting, farming and dirty work boots? I look forward to the next adventure.