TechMiso

The term was ‘nesting’. In response to a planned move of office furniture to facilitate better staff communication, one staffer complained, ‘I’ll have nowhere to nest.’

Rachel Metz, AP Technology Writer, reports that at AOL’s New York headquarters, executive nesting is over. Tim Armstrong, AOL’s newly installed CEO, dropped the hammer on a legacy floor-plan that may well have been rooted in AOL’s days of old as a dial-up ISP.

The doors — made of glass and requiring a company key card to pass through — stood in AOL’s New York headquarters, separating the offices of executives like former CEO Randy Falco and his No. 2, Ron Grant, from the rank and file.

It’s likely that at some point in the workday, on more occasions than Armstrong desired, these doors disrupted good AOL management and staff communication. In corporate office spaces, a closed door is a barrier. Cutting off access to people is never conducive to an environment where you want the word ‘proactive’ to be synonymous with your company’s survival.

With AOL’s fall from the ISP A-list, Armstrong [in an effort to rebuild his ship] had no other choice but to champion a shift in corporate culture. With reorganization and rebuilding comes change. And not everyone likes change, but either you’re onboard or you’re not. If you’re not, grab a life preserver and start your swim class.

AP also reported-

AOL launched an internal survey in early May, hoping to get comments on what the company’s goals should be. In an e-mail to the staff, Armstrong said AOL needed a mission that is reflected in its products.

Armstrong wrote-
“We have a huge advantage in this effort because we touch so many consumers each day, and they will take notice of our renewed focus and energy,” he wrote.

Internal corporate survey? A nice preemptive strike by Armstrong. This is a data call applicable at all levels of any agency. There’s no quicker way to identify intrinsic company value [or problem hotspots] than by asking your own staff.

If you’ll read through it for me, I’ll share my own experience here with you about breaking down the walls-

When I was handed the keys to a small IT department three years ago, I stepped into an office layout mess. The manager’s office was [a renovated equipment room from the 80's] and stacked wall-to-wall with legacy systems and replacement PC parts — all of which my staff believed were the outgoing manager’s pet project [kept alive] in R&D-like status. Weren’t they surprised when I signed disposition paperwork to dump all of it, and I mean ALL of it. The only things left were my desk and a workstation — keeping it simple. I also placed a priority work order with our facility engineers to have two walls and their doors demolished — the nest destroyed. This brought my staff within earshot of one another. And they no longer had to pass through two doors to visit for discussions. Most noticeable improvement though was the rapid change in how they volleyed open issues back-and-forth. Open communication. Hence, no doors and no walls.

What Armstrong did with AOL’s doors was in natural succession and is a well accepted business practice. He reorganized. He used his fresh untainted view of a new environment and in orderly fashion he identified shortfalls. He then bravely facilitated their improvement. Could Armstrong be AOL’s new recipe for successful Miso? TechMiso thinks he might just have the right stuff.