I thought the debate about open-plan offices was long over (if you’re going open-plan, you’d have done it by now), but apparently not. Thanks to Bernard Hickey, I read that the CEO of National Australia Bank is advocating it, and suggesting that other banks which have yet to move to open-plan are probably hide-bound in other ways.

I’m a big fan of open-plan, with executives in amongst everyone else.  Obviously you have to get the house rules right, and provide private space for private conversations and thinking, but the increase in information flow, collegiality, unity of purpose and general buzz is very palpable.  When we were planning the radical transformation of Electra from stuffy, hierarchical power board to dynamic, lean, efficient and empowered customer service organisation, we discussed what changes we needed in culture and operating style.  I then went away to the beach for a holiday, only to return and find that the staff had literally torn down all the internal walls one weekend.  It was a spur-of-the-moment unauthorised initiative, and afterwards there was high trepidation concerning my reaction.  There was only one thing I could say when I walked into the building and saw all these worried faces looking at me: “Brilliant! Where do I sit?” Anything else would have destroyed the very changes I wanted to bring about. That wall demolition weekend was the start of a truly amazing transformation.

Getting product engineers to move into  an open plan environment at Deltec proved more tricky, with great protestations about dedicated personal offices for deep thought.  Moving buildings was the catalyst this time, with the engineers going into a new, high-vaulted, attractive and airy space.  There was still the odd gripe about needing personal offices from one or two designers, but inter-team interaction lifted noticeably, and led to some great cross-product innovation.

Conversely, in Fronde’s already existent open-plan environment, it eventually proved necessary for me to move into an office.  I was doing a lot of confidential business, but having an adjacent meeting room would have sufficed for that. However, and more importantly, I wanted to strengthen the position of the local leaders, to be seen to run their business units. That’s possibly more an argument for keeping head office out of a branch location.

Open-plan is a tool of organisational ethos and culture; it may not suit every situation. However, any reason to not go open-plan needs to be very profound to make up for the lost benefits.