Purchasing

Mary Walker

Today’s office
March 27, 2007

In the old days, professionalism meant a dark suit, white shirt and a conservative tie.

For the ladies, a suit or dress was the dress code. In today’s world, we have advanced to the “business casual” dress code. There is little distinction in dress from the manager to the warehouse worker. Does this not dismiss or take away the authority of the leaders of the company. The casual dress code or appearance makes employees feel on a more equal level. It diminishes the effect of management as a leader.

Everyday we hear the term “team concept”. A team is a group of people; however the team cannot be successful unless someone steps forward to lead the team. The team is only as good as the people in it. Yes, we are all equal and if we sit around with this idea, nothing is accomplished. Our country has had great leaders and our businesses must have great leaders. Our leaders must step forward in the business world and the community. Their professionalism can make the company a better place to work and the community a better place to live, bringing value to all they touch.

Do you remember psychology 101 (or whatever), how the work environment contributed to employee productivity. A big office reflects power and authority. A cubicle indicates you should have an office but due to space and cost, this is the best we can do right now.

Then we go to the open work environment, we better watch these people are they will not work. All of this relates to professionalism. Warehouses are being color-coded, names displayed on bins, to give the employees a feeling of pride and ownership.

Robert Propst developed the original action office system in the 1960’s, realizing he could never pin down exactly what the office should look like, Propst developed a system of components that could be combined and recombined to become whatever an office needs over time. Propst’s idea was to banish the rows of desks in huge open office areas, providing cubicles for privacy and personal space. Tom Davenport, Professor at Babson College in a year long survey determined three factors determined performance:

Management and organization, information technology and workplace design. Davenport also stated “Understanding and managing attention is now the single most important determinant of business success”. Does your company offer a professional environment for you to work in?This plays a great part in your productivity.

We need to look at this again, “Understanding and managing attention is now the single most important determinant of business success.”

Word Net Dictionary states a determining or causal element or factor, “education is an important “determinate” of one’s outlook on life.

Trillions of documents circulate in U.S. offices annually. Internet traffic doubles every hundred days. Approximately two hundred messages flood manager’s desk-tops daily. Welcome to the attention economy, in which the new scarcest resource isn’t ideas or even talent, but attention itself. This groundbreaking book argues that today’s businesses are headed for disaster, - unless they can overcome the dangerously high attention deficits that threaten to cripple today’s workplace. Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck explain that the problems for business people lie on both sides of the attention equation:on getting and holding the attention of information–flooded employees, consumers and stockholders, and in parceling out their own attention in the face of overwhelming options. The resolution:learn to manage this critical yet finite resource, or fail. This is the information found on the back cover of the book, “The Attention Economy:Understand the New Currency of Business” published by the Harvard Business School Press.

Posted by Mary Walker on March 27, 2007 | Comments (0)