I work in a cubicle farm. I work in a cubicle farm where we have company values that we’re all supposed to be supporting and personally displaying. One of our values is a truly noble one: innovation. In fact, we had a very large kick-off celebration today where those behind the product being launched were praised for their innovation. My company prides itself on the innovation of its employees.
However, innovation relies on two things: creativity and communication. These two concepts are often linked in a corporate setting, as it is often a brainstorming session that leads to some of the most creative ideas implemented by corporations. My company loves team meetings, so we have all sorts of organized time to brainstorm and create and innovate.
We also have a lot of non-structured problem-solving time, though. This takes place in our cubicle farm, in our own rows, in casual conversations with each other. The way my particular department is laid out, you may sit near a few of your own projectmates or teammates. You sit near more people who have nothing to do with either your project or your departmental team, and it’s a great set-up. I didn’t initially agree with it, but it’s amazing how often one person will be beating their head against a wall and another will come at it from their own project/team worldview and help solve it. It’s a boundaryless (see, another company value!) brainstorming solution. Because our cubicles are so small and squished together, we often don’t go directly to the person, we just talk a little bit louder to be heard through the thin walls.
Apparently, this is a problem. We are routinely reminded to use our “inside voices”, often by uncreative people who talk loudly about little or nothing. To bring down the noise is to cut my department (and the department that makes up the other part of our division) off from an invaluable resource: each other. (Ironically, we have a company value called “Valuing our people”. Doesn’t sound like we’re meeting that value, does it?) If we are forced to go and whisper to each other about things, we’ve shut out everybody else from benefiting from a possible solution to a problem affecting many of us. We also reduce the socialization factor that is a nice by-product of the cubicle farm. I don’t know that we’d all know each other on my row if we all kept to our projects and our teams.
It defeats the mixture that accidentally happened in my department. It defeats the human spirit. It defeats our company values.
