Knowledge and the Cardinal: Organizations That Breathe In and Breathe Out

The more virtual an organization becomes, the more it needs to put into place periodic opportunities for workers to come together to renew relationships and cement their commitments to each other and to their joint goals. Think of it as breathing out and breathing in. Organizations breathe out by spreading across the globe, they breathe in when teams come back together to have human interaction. Oscillating between the two provides the best of both worlds.

But many organizations have decided they need to do one or the other. Some think that after spending all that money on software, team members should have no need to come together. Others like IBM, Bank of America, and Yahoo, having tried being virtual, have called workers back to the office to strengthen collaboration. Both have an “all or nothing” way of thinking - when the answer is really both!

Virtual (breathing out) contributes:

The ability to draw on the global talent pool
Reduction in the cost of office space
Autonomy that provides workers greater opportunity to experiment and try out new ideas
Being able to respond quickly to local customers
More satisfying integration of work and family life.

In-Person (breathing in) contributes:

Commitment to jointly made decisions
Shared understanding of goals/purpose
Parts smoothly come together into a meaningful whole, despite having been developed independently
Innovative solutions to complex issues that are arrived at through collective sensemaking
A sense of community, cohesion, and belongingness

I envision a future in which organizations that breathe out and breathe in are the new normal. A future in which organizations make full use of the unique attributes of both virtual and in-person.

“Office buildings” will have become “convening centers.” No longer will they be they places where individuals enter one by one, each heading to his or her assigned cubicle, instead whole teams will arrive together, greeting colleagues they have not seen over the past few months. Convening centers will be conducive to renewing relationships but also to addressing difficulties that have arisen related to the joint task a team is engaged. There will be spaces of all sizes, which are easily re-configurable with moveable furniture to accommodate groups of five or fifty and lots of open space for putting chairs in multiple small circles or one large circle. There will be rolling whiteboards and wall space for making joint work visible. There will be large windows with no need to worry about having too much light to see the screen because convening will be about conversations, not PowerPoint presentations. There will be lots of comfortable, informal space, ideal for chatting over coffee and snacks.

When breathing out, I see organizations using advanced virtual tools to collaborate and stay connected. Tools that, with just a click of a button, a team member can be virtually in another member’s office, or all ten team members can be developing a plan in a virtual space. There will be effortless ways to view what others are working on and to contribute to each other’s work. There will be visualization tools that allow everyone on the team to see each member’s progress toward getting the group’s task accomplished, so team members can reach out to help where and when they are needed, and so that accountability is visible. Team members will have learned to be proficient in their use of virtual tools; able to make sound judgments about when to use what form of media to address different types of issues, e.g., decision making, brainstorming, requesting information. And they will recognize when an issue is too complex to try to solve virtually, so will schedule that issue on the agenda for the next in-person meeting.

Look around! It’s already happening at the edges!