Friends:
I thought you might be interested in my latest article on visual management:
Visual Management is a system of management that uses all of your available space to send a consistent, whole-brained message which focuses on accomplishing your mission and achieving your goals. At the same time, it will help you engage and motivate your employees.
Instead of making your space a nice place to work in, you transform it into an inspiring environment that honors the mission, celebrates the great work of the employees, shares information in a strategic manner, and helps hold employees accountable. Moreover, when you do this, the work space will also help shape the outside world’s view of your organization and attract great people who will want to work for you. That is a design choice in the same way that many of today’s nondescript spaces are.
To get started, ensure that your space is properly designed. You want to have the right people sitting next to each other, those who require privacy should have it, and the entire space should flow properly. You should also ensure that the space is consistent with your values. For example, if you want to have a team environment, where appropriate, use low, rather than high partitions.
Make sure that the space is well lit, airy and cheerful. Ensure that the colors of the walls and carpets/floors match and promote the right atmosphere. The idea here is that before you actually begin to implement a formal visual management program, the existing space needs to support the more complex design elements.
Once you are ready, put together a visual management team comprised of people in your organization who are champions of the concept. Make sure the team has a leader who can make things happen. The team will probably include people who have diverse interests and skills in the fine arts, photography, information technology, history, construction, etc. Include the union as well if they represent your employees.
When putting your plan together, the goal is not to hang up a bunch of stuff on the walls that look good; rather, it is to hang/place everything in a logical and coherent manner and send a clear and consistent message. A good example is the way art museums display works of art. They don’t hang a Rembrandt next to a Picasso. They group the work by century, period or country so that everything flows.
The Path to a Transformed Workspace
You need to constantly ask yourself: how does everything fit together? In my experience, those organizations that tried to implement a visual management program on a piecemeal basis wound up with a bit of a mishmash because the components were not well integrated.
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