We've redesigned our website to highlight what we
do best. We are a strategy consulting firm helping organizations
create... - life-sustaining environments - thriving communities, and -
anticipatory leadership skills by finding the leverage points of client
systems to shape future results. Take a look under the hood...
| Life
Sustaining Environment Goes To College |
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Art of the
Future is working closely with a world- reknown college research center
to analyse the work environment for their staff and management team.
Primarily co-located in a house on the edge of campus, this team is jam
packed into every nook and cranny. The corridors serve as storage areas
in violation of safety codes. The few remote staff members have no
place to hang their hat when they come to the center. The single
conference room is often booked solid from morning to evening. The only
communal space is the front porch, weather permitting. Speech privacy
to handle sensitive issues or to make a personal call is hard to find.
The directors offices do double and triple duty as auxillary meeting
spaces, phone booths and even shared office space. All of this is
taking a toll of morale and productivity. Can this environment be
saved?
Using the
life-sustaining environment approach, Art of the Future has identified
several opportunities to turn this situation around. These include:
- Clear, sort, toss,
donate and store to reduce clutter, eliminate code violations and
create a sense of order.
- Use nooks and crannies for “touch-down” space
for remote staff or visitors
- Create “phone-booths” for private
conversations.
- Use half-open work areas to provide a sense
of territory while enhancing the connection with others.
- Make use of a remote space allocated to the
Center as a magnetic attractor for frequent recognition celebrations,
seminars and collaborations.
- Coordinate furniture, signage, graphics and
artwork for a consistent “look & feel.”
- Enliven the space lively with color, texture,
kiosks and display materials that include the Center’s history,
purpose, current initiatives and success stories.
- Make the approach, entrance and reception
area welcoming and informative.
- Create generous
corridors and stairwells that invite people to have impromptu
conversations that may lead to serendipitous collaboration or rapid
decision-making.
These
recommendation were less expensive and disruptive than either expanding
the facility or moving the entire operation to a larger facility. They
also lead to a participatory process that captured the imagination of
the entire staff and improved cameraderie and team work. We beleive it
also led to a better result.
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| Thriving
Communities Attract the Creative Class |
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Last week while visiting my childhood home
in Louisville, I went to the Walgreeens in Clifton to fill a
prescription. I drove there behind a trolley that was stopping
frequently, and I couldn’t help noticing that the street seemed very
busy. I got out of the car and walked from Walgreens up to the old
Crescent Theatre. The joint was hoppin’! Musical groups were playing
(very well!); artists and craftspeople were vending their products on
the sidewalk, the restaurants and bars were packed, firemen were
showing little kids the hook and ladder, the streets were jammed with
people from every walk of life. What a great night! Why wasn’t
Frankfort Avenue like this when I was a kid?! If a Louisville
neighborhood ever wanted a picture of a thriving community, this was
it!
Of course, there are many, many different
images of what a thriving community looks like whether they are
localities, communities of interest, or virtual communites. But, I
think many of us have some common images of a thriving community. Some
of these images might include norms embrace diversity in a broad range
of dimensions. There are, most likely, common values and high levels of
trust, committment and involvement by all constituencies. Thriving
communities attract activity and creativity; they are peaceful yet
highly energetic. We build this picture of thriving communities
together with community representatives at the first meeting of the
Thriving Communities process.
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Profiling
Anika Ellison Savage
(formerly Audrey Schriefer)
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As a corporate architect and strategist,
Anika experienced both the life- sustaining and the life-draining
aspects of being a member of an organization. This has led her to
dedicate her work toward addressing workplace issues from both the
perspective of the individual as well as their employers. She cares
deeply about creating work enivronments in which people can thrive.
Anika's early career was dedicated to the
design of the built environment as a registered architect. She holds a
Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY and a
Master of Architecuture from the University of California at Berkeley.
She has designed luxury and low-income housing, wineries, churches,
schools, spas, ski lodges, manufacturing, warehouse and office
facilities.
While working at a booming, high-tech
company, Anika wanted to learn more about the business environment in
which she was operating. This lead to an MBA from Babson College and a
shift in career focus. Her concept of the work environment expanded
beyond brick and mortar to include the people, the policies and the
culture that shape the work experience. She found that within the
company, the quality of the work environment varied tremendously from
group to group. Anika became fascinated with identifying and
replicating those factors that make people actually look forward to
Monday morning .
As part of her quest to understand the
impact of the work environment on engagement and productivity, Anika
framed and participated in a reasearch initiative at Bell Labs in
Murray Hill, NJ. This research had the team visiting thirty leading-
edge companies around the world, interviewing the senior management
teams, touring facilities, studying work processes, documenting the
organizational dynamics in system diagrams and producing the research
report as a website for rapid internal communication, a first for the
Labs.
That was ten years ago and Anika has
continued to observe a wide variety of working conditions, theorize how
the elements create a supportive and creative environment, apply the
learnings in client situations and monitor the impact of interventions.
The results have been impressive. Not only are employees reporting more
satisfaction and engagement, their organizations have measured higher
retention rates, better quality and increased customer satisfaction.
Through personal as well as professional experience, Anika has learned
that how you feel about your job makes a huge difference in every
aspect of your life.
Read more.... |
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