Open office culture ! Promoting peer to peer communication, collaboration, empowering, learning and happiness!

Many organisation have a strong 'hierarchical culture'; corner offices and cabins are an important feature of the office layout. The culture strongly represents status, influence, power and hierarchy. I believe that the hierarchical (and closed door) culture creates artificial differences among people, an atmosphere of power play and one goal which is to get the cabin. The cabin culture may have its merits however my professional journey into India required me to create and foster an environment of open and candid communication, build trust and team work, ensure continuous learning, confidence building, co-operation and collaboration.  

With the support of my team and my manager, I decided to initiate a few actions:

· Set-up my seat with the team in the open office space. I had made myself always available for everyone any time during the office except when I was in a meeting unless the matter was urgent. Initial reactions were not encouraging as some felt intrusion into their privacy but this soon changed as they felt comfortable and easy in a friendly environment.
·  Use my cabin for either 1 on 1 communication, important calls, or hosting meeting or a reading and reflecting space. The cabin had a sofa which was generally used to relax, engage in serious conversations and deep thinking and reflections. There were meeting rooms for daily interaction and engagement that would happen daily at 10 am. 
·   Never lock my cabin so that it can be used by all colleagues any time. After office hours by my colleagues will host meetings or reflect in a relaxed environment or use the golfing kit to play and relax. Contrary to expectations, nothing was misplaced nor lost. Voluntary honesty and integrity at its best.
·  Place different team clusters in a descending order of seats that promotes open communication, interaction, learning, collaboration and smooth execution. The trading origination, structuring and the treasury trading was placed on a single bench. The next row comprised of operations teams.  The tax, legal and secretarial team bench follows the operations row. The accounting team in a column that spans from trading up to secretarial team.
·   Create discussion space with small tables, patient seat, sofa, and white boards at the heart of the office.
·   Buy a small refrigerator and a bread toaster for a quick bite and catch up with colleagues. Travelling to office within Indian cities can be time consuming and tiring, so a quick breakfast which may have been skipped and a refreshing cold drink helped rejuvenate!
·  Well lit white light office space made the office lively and bright; the yellow lights had created a dull environment were replaced.
· No emails with colleagues unless it was a policy matter or that formal approvals were required.

Initially the open office concept and my seating space among my team did create scepticism and rumours within the company’s as it challenged the existing norms and culture but was soon accepted as progressive. The open office culture also intruded into few people privacy and their peaceful nature however they soon accepted it as they benefited from the congenial, friendly and empowering environment.

Within the next few months, people worked differently in the new environment and working spirit changed. People did not have to make appointments to see each other; new ideas and client origination emerged from unplanned interactions. Business meetings were routinely held at work stations or at the spur of the moment whenever someone passed by. Productivity and learning increased tremendously. 

The result were very encouraging:

· We managed to tear down the hierarchies and a hierarchical culture. Transparency and candour was no longer desisted; in fact transparency and open communication lead to empowerment and quicker learning.
· People felt comfortable, trusted, empowered, engaged and confident. Environment of trust encouraged open and candid communication. We managed to invigorate our already collaborative and open culture.
·  People’s productivity, energy, connectedness and learning increased. Peer to peer communication, learning and collaboration was better. Learning from peers became a natural process, it took less efforts to integrate and orient new talent.  It was quicker for people to acquire new knowledge and understanding thus helping them to raise their productivity and get promoted. Word of mouth of a healthy, respectful and learning culture attracted new hires!
·  Energy levels, motivation and morale were higher; respect and trust for others, happiness, job satisfaction and productivity increased.
·  Teamwork and insights around the origination opportunities and projects was enhanced; frictions were reduced and knowledge was easily shared. People happily shared new ideas, knowledge, and came out with innovative solutions. People also learned quickly by watching and listening others.
·  Lead time from strategy to execution and profitability was shortened as not much was lost in communication or if lost was salvaged quickly; problems were solved immediately without procrastination. 
·  Operations, accounting, tax, legal and secretarial team worked in unison with origination, structuring and trading; everyone had prior knowledge on strategies, structures, and their expectation on execution.

The small team created an highly engaging environment that promoted customer focus, high performance, collaboration, innovation, and a frictionless quick product and servicing lead time to market and customers. Many thanks to the open work environment work culture and the team !  

The open door policy allowed this pigeon to peacefully rest and roam about in the cabin office!!