SIGNPOSTS

Exchanging ideas too early and too often hinders their diversity and potential to innovate.

The workplace should promote absurdity.

The workplace should nurture our human traits.

Adversities are worth keeping, even introduced, in the workplace to promote innovation.

Aloneness needs to be within the ideal conditions of its effects on us (solitude) and the quality of the idea itself.

Boredom can become a useful thinking tool.

The subjectivity behind preparedness and readiness hinders the benchmarking of workplaces.

Understanding the meaning of the workplace as well as its function can lead to better places of work.

Experience design and organisation design need to be aligned in the workplace for the organisation to achieve its objectives.

Moving at slow speed allows us to interact with people, but we still need symbols in the workplace for others and for our personal identity.

The process of designing a workplace can get in the way of creating an environment which meets its purpose.

There is beauty in the ugliness of personalisation.

Absurdity can result in greater meaning and purpose.

Seeing normality through absurdity can show the absurd as normal.

Normality can be the offspring of the unchallenged.

Strong cohesion can have the benefits and pitfalls of a small country town.

Increasing opportunities to socialise might not result in a more inclusive environment.

The noise of knowledge transfer could be the sound of collaboration.

Designing work first and then the workplace could lead to dramatic new forms of value.

Good design aligns the work aesthetic of an organisation with its looks.

Social proximity can promote empathy.

(B)ehaviour in the workplace can vary as a result of changes in the (E)nvironment and/or the (P)erson.

The workplace is not only what we can measure.

The difficulty in changing our beliefs can hinder the adoption of innovation.

Work and tasks are different yet interconnected.

Work is intangible, tasks are tangible.

Work is more than its output.

The workplace could benefit from lessons derived from instances where work can’t be done.

Work which is aligned with its environment does not require added meaning.

The pursuit of efficiencies might strip work of its meaning.

The need of gamification and added rituals might be tell-tale signs of an overly efficient workplace.

Understanding work cues can help improve current and emerging work environments.

The workplace is also what it is not.

In the absence of work, with only tasks left to do, no workplace would suffice.