Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes the arrangement of furniture in an office is far more important than a first glance indicates.

Once upon a time, I worked in an organization that moved into some office spaces that were previously occupied by another organization. We inherited their office furniture and their arrangement of office furniture.

In the center of the offices sat a round table with half a dozen chairs encircling the table. Half a dozen of us would gather at this table each day at lunch time, eat, talk, and generally come to know one another.

That round table with its half a dozen chairs was beneficial to the organization because it was where persons from different and differing parts of the organization came to know one another as persons. For those who speak of such things, this table is where a group of persons became a team that was greater than the sum of its parts.

In time, senior managers in our organization began to exert their influence on the inherited office spaces. One influence was a decision to fill the center of the offices with cubicles. The round table and its half a dozen chairs would be no more.

Several of us pleaded with our senior managers for the round table and its half a dozen chairs. We pleaded repeatedly but vainly.

Community lunches ceased. Differing persons returned to our differing attitudes about “them” (the universal label for differing persons). The organization returned to being one where the whole was less than the sum of its parts.

Sometimes a table is not just a table. Sometimes a table is a force multiplier.

Please consider this is someone tries to replace a central table with cubicles.