Leadership Lessons from the Lowertown Experiment

Six months ago, I left my office in the corporate headquarters to join 40 co-workers in an office experiment. I wrote an entire article about the experiment and what we hoped to achieve, but I will summarize the main points here.

Our corporate office campus is being remodeled floor-by-floor, so we needed some additional space to work while our floor got the makeover. We could have sought the closest suburban office building with space, but we intentionally decided to try something different and harder.

This experiment was all about contrasts:

• From the suburbs to the city
• From a 1980’s campus to an 1880’s brick and timber warehouse
• From cubicles and offices to tables and chairs
• From dedicated workspace to a multi-tenant co-working environment
• From low-density to high-density workspace
• From the corporate network to shared infrastructure

Here are some of our key learnings from the experiment:

Workspace is deeply personal

In my work as a technology leader, I’m no stranger to passionate debate. Technology professionals are notorious for wielding strong positions on cloud platforms, operating system flavors, and programming languages. As intense as those debates can get, there are few things more personal than workspace.

Everyone has a preference and an opinion on everything. Few can agree on anything and one-size-fits-all just doesn’t seem to exist. Our work environment really matters to all of us. We care about it deeply because it is literally the seat of our productivity. Messing with workspace is a touchy subject.

Knowing this, I’m particularly proud of the 40 people in CHS IT that attempted such a radical upset to their work environment. It wasn’t easy.

Urban/suburban is polarizing

I’ve found that there are an equal number of people that like the suburbs and dislike the city as those who like the city and dislike the suburbs. There is hardly anything empirical about it. It’s just a polarizing subject, like Coke and Pepsi or cats and dogs. You like one or the other, and probably have a strong opinion about it.

For a number of folks in the experiment, the urban environment was a problem, simply because it was urban, not because of anything specific about the building or location we picked. For an equal number, the urban environment was an exciting draw.

Trying to be as unbiased as possible, I think each environment has its own list of positives and negatives and each of us weigh those elements differently.

Incremental change is easier to accept than radical change

As a change agent, I picked a pretty radical approach. This was a rip-the-band-aid-off, shock-to-the-system way of making change. As you probably expected, several people rejected the change.

In retrospect, there are number of things we could have done to make it more incremental than radical. We could have gone with a medium-density layout rather than high-density. We could have invested in higher-end corporate furniture, rather than the austere tables and chairs that are the norm for the startup community. We could have provided more personal storage space.

All of these things would have made the change less dramatic, which probably would have made a significant difference for many.

The cool factor

The city is cool. High-tech startups are cool. Brick and timber warehouses are cool. Eclectic neighborhood eateries are cool. Squeaky hardwood floors are cool. Hipster coffee is cool.

So, how cool is the “cool factor?” Does it matter? Does it make a difference? I’m not in high school anymore, so why should I care about being cool?

Cool is one thing this experiment had in spades. Frankly, as a geek, this is probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. Over the past six months, countless people have wanted to come over and see our space. They’ve wanted to have offsite meetings here. They’ve openly expressed their jealousy to me. Trust me. I’m not usually this cool.

The buzz has far exceeded the actual differentiating utility of it all. But what if the buzz and the cool have utility in themselves? I’ll throw this in the category of “fun at work.” If you google “fun at work” you will find countless articles and studies that espouse the productivity, creativity, retention, health, and economic benefits from having fun at work.

So, yes, I can definitively say that this is important and worth it. When this wraps up, we will have to find more fun, cool, and buzz-worthy things to pursue. It’s worth it.

The technology was the easy part

I wrote an article about the technology challenges we took on as a part of this effort. We threw plenty of technology at this to make it as good as possible. For the most part, the technology worked. Noisy HVAC system? Noise-cancelling headphones. Done. If only all of my challenges were this easy to solve.

Product teams are key

About a month ago on this blog, I mentioned that we are transitioning to a product operating model within CHS IT. While this effort is gaining momentum now, six months ago, it wasn’t underway yet. Ideally, we wanted to co-locate dedicated product teams in Lowertown, but for a variety of reasons, we weren’t ready to do that then.

That produced a situation where people in Lowertown had to collaborate all day with people at the corporate campus. We provided the technology to do that effectively, but as a side-effect, working in Lowertown felt a lot like working from home. All of the action was still on the corporate campus.

As a result of this experiment, I believe that autonomous, dedicated product teams are key to a successful multi-site IT department. Spreading shared services across multiple sites simply produces a lot of conference calls. Conference calls are fine, but most people prefer fewer than more of them.

Did it work?

So, what is the verdict? Did the experiment succeed or fail? That probably depends on how you define success. Here’s how I think about it.

In practical terms, this was designed to be short-term solution to a short-term space shortage created by our corporate campus remodel. Lowertown met that minimum threshold for success without issue.

On the other extreme, I imagined a possibility where the Lowertown experiment was so successful and valuable that we didn’t give it up when we had the chance because the business value was overwhelming and intrinsically justified independent from a space shortage. That didn’t happen.

We are, in-fact, moving back to the corporate campus shortly. While part of me is sad about that, I’m personally looking forward to being back on campus full-time. I think I can do my job better in-person than from a satellite office location.

For me, success means learning. Did we learn something from this experiment? Yes, we did. A lot in-fact. In addition to all of the lessons I captured above, I’ll add one more.

Our people are resilient and adaptable to change. They also really know how to get work done. We dropped a bomb on the workspace experience for a lot of people (beyond the Lowertown experiment). Throughout that and despite that, we continued to produce a lot of business value to CHS owners. That’s pretty remarkable. That’s the kind of success I’m all about.

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Read this article on my blog site: https://zachonleadership.com/leadership-lessons-from-the-lowertown-experiment/