Fit For Service By David Childs

Space
(Joints)

Dispose

Walk, Evaluate, Anticipate

Comfortable Contact

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An organism is healthiest when its internal parts are properly spaced and when its external spatial environment is one of comfortable contact. And so it is with your organization. Just as you change the size of your clothes and shoes throughout life to acknowledge and reflect your body's evolutionary changes, so you must occasionally re-organize the spacing within your organization to reflect its evolution. Demand for certain functions may increase or decrease. Changes in laws or in technology may impact resource allocation and space needs.

Just as an increase in the amount of space taken up by fat, phlegm, plaque and cholesterol is a bad sign for a body, so an increase in the amount of space taken up by badly managed departments, lawyers and accountants/auditors is a bad indicator for an organization. Just as a healthy person tries to keep their fat, phlegm, plaque and cholesterol counts down, so a healthy organization constantly controls the amount of resources and space that is taken up by poorly managed departments, lawyers and auditors.

Healthy organizations limit the amount of space taken up by waste and fat, while anticipating, preparing for and providing a constant environment of comfortable contact.

Chapter 9 Preview >>

A Fit For Service Fitness Trainer (FFST) was working with an Organization which felt that it had an identity and esteem problem. The Organization was made up of a staff of twenty-five in one large room. The FFST observed that the room was arranged so that the telephone staff of six was placed in the center of the room, while the product staff was crammed around the wall. Not only was the spatial psychological message that the telephone staff was most important and production was an afterthought, but the noise created by the telephone staffs’ conversations (the Telephone Staff did not have cubicles, they were at open desks) made it difficult for production staff to concentrate.

The FFST proposed re-arranging the entire room, granting the majority of the room to Production, moving the Telephone Unit to one corner and surrounding them with sound absorbing cubicles. Almost immediately the production staff began to develop teamwork, and a sense of mission and pride; inspired by nothing more than a spatial re-organization.