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How car dealers uncovered a surprising key to greater customer satisfaction

February 10, 2012
architecture, Design strategy, innovation, Strategy design, workplace design
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from Factory Image Programs: A NADA Research Project

 

One of the more active and heated debates on the value of design to business is over what are called “factory image programs” for car dealerships.

Most car manufacturers, concerned about the alignment of dealership appearance with their product programs, periodically impose or strongly influence updates to the physical quality and character of dealers’ facilities. Most dealers resist the programs because they are unable to link a measurable business benefit like increased sales to the high cost of these programs.

So the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) commissioned an independent study to uncover and identify the value in the programs and recommend a resolution to the ongoing conflict between them and the manufacturers. The study was just released at the annual NADA convention a couple of days ago.

I expect I’ll return to comment further on the study in the near future. But I did want to offer an initial and very interesting out-take from the study.

After discussing the diverse and complex array of considerations and influences that made solid conclusions almost impossible to derive, and especially after uncovering that the annual costs of billions of dollars spent on dealership facilities meant very little, if anything, to people buying the cars, the study uncovered an unanticipated yet solidly expressed value in the programs.

…dealers expressed pleasant surprise that, after they completed a store upgrade, it became much easier to attract, retain, and motivate good staff. One multi-point dealer even told us that “I modernize as much to attract good staff as to impress the customers.” Another pointed out that with improved employee morale came improved CSI scores, which makes sense. The impact seemed especially powerful in the service area: as one interviewee put it: “A dropped ceiling in the service bays will do wonders in attracting and retaining good technicians, who are pretty used otherwise to being ignored.”

Despite the experiential evidence that there was this direct link between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction (CSI = Customer Satisfaction Index), there apparently has been no survey by the manufactures or the dealer association to uncover and verify these anecdotal, and logical, findings.

And I think that’s where I’ll return in future commentary. I have some significant experience in factory image programs and have consistently been surprised with the fact that they align things (store fixtures) with things (car designs) but not the real experiences with and in these things.

That to me is the most important point of this study, affirming what we know from other places. The real power of workplace design lies not in the “brand image” but in the experiences of work. The quality and character of the workplace directly links to attraction, engagement, morale, motivation and performance of good employees, and that directly links to quality and character of the customer’s experience with the organization.

The NADA has, in other words, discovered what we’ve said in so many other places – the leading organizations of the future will be the ones who “own” the experiences of work.

Where you [don't] sit in the office

February 8, 2012
architecture, Design strategy, innovation, Strategy design, workplace design
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We reflected recently on the debate taking place about the appropriateness of an open office to meet the needs of a diverse population with diverse needs and characteristics. Our position was and is that this is not an either/or choice of the rightness of open versus closed. We are also concerned that a hybrid may not be the best or more robust response, although we certainly believe this is an acceptable midterm-in-the-transformation-of-the-office solution.

Our emerging position is that work has changed substantially and fundamentally, and we now believe that the either/or/hybrid battle uses an increasingly archaic language. We believe that an entirely new lexicon of form is essential to get on and stay on the curve of the increasing momentum of change.

Beyond the open/closed debate, there is also the one about where we work – home or office – and the relative value of each. A recent example of this debate was published on the Bloomberg Businessweek site, here. As with the open/closed debate, we think that these arguments proposing that one or the other is the more correct place are the delightful indicator of a revolution in the making, yet also reflect a depressing tendency to hang on to an ancient lexicon and miss the currently delicious opportunity to design a new language of work and the places and spaces of work.

What is, however, great to grab from the debate is the data from the emerging science of space and interaction. In the Bloomberg Businessweek debate, Ben Weber cites the growing evidence of the benefits of productivity, engagement and job satisfaction that come from face-to-face interaction. This kind of data is helpful in shaping new solutions for the place we’ve called “the office” and is also helpful in identifying the cultural characteristics and attributes of personal and group behaviors that should be the “program” for designing new types of spaces where the new activities of work can take place.

In yet another example, Bob Frisch asked the question, “Does it matter where your top team sits?” in a recent HBR article (here). He is, essentially, advocating something we’ve done in past work, which is to provide multiple settings for people to do their work. “Two seats for every employee” sounds counter-intuitive in a time of great compression, but the mantra reinforces the recognition that capturing the value of face-to-face interactions means supporting it in lots of different locations.

Our take is that all of this discussion is the illumination of the fact that we work differently now and need a different response to thinking about and designing the workspace(s). Whether we sit at home or in “the office” or with one team or another, or in a place for focus or a place for collaboration, we should begin to recognize that we work in all of these places and in all of these modes. We should no longer demand a place only for one of us and try to make it work for all that we do, and we should no longer accept a place of work provided by the companies we work for that does not provide lots of places for us to work in the modes that best support what we need to do at whatever time of the day we need it.

We desperately need to move on in the world and get new stuff done. We need new places to do that.

Things we’ve noticed

January 7, 2012
architecture, Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design
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How. And why. Not what.

This is a very nice piece on enjoying the “how” and “why” in the process of answering a challenging question rather than rushing to the “what,” the answer.

The process of answering a question should be a voyage of discovery, a journey during which you learn something, and one where you enjoy yourself in the process.

The essay made me think about the invisible processes in business, and also how the places of businesses are not designed around the how and why. If the design and planning of workspaces made clearer the purposes of the enterprise, and if the processes people and teams used to get to the what were more transparent and observable, would an organization learn more, create more valuable knowledge, and achieve more?

What innovators share

Somewhat related to the above is this review in the Ottawa Business Journal of a recent book on the “innovator’s DNA.” The review reflects on the power of “the five whys” while also noting the five distinguishing characteristics of successful innovators.

associating, observing, questioning, experimenting and networking

We’d found our way this week, in the midst of our own annual strategic planning, to a discussion about the uniqueness of the places and spaces where innovation seems most successful. As I carry the images of those spaces, I’m making a resolution to shape our design mission – our client’s “program” or “design brief” for their corporate workspace – into a form that links workspace concepts to these 5 attributes.

That is, since most of our clients are engaged in a search for how to generate and support a more entrepreneurial culture, I intend to test a change of the lexicon of workplace design from conventional descriptors of corporate organization and function (“accounting”) and conventional workplace form (“conference room”) to new terms reflecting these innovation behavior attributes.

I expect that radical transformations in design processes and concepts will emerge.

Augmented reality

There are many things to enjoy and reflect on in this proposal of trends for 2012 from the Smithsonian here and here.

I expect I’ll come back to the list for further exploration and comment, since I stopped almost immediately at the first subject, augmented reality.

In a recent project, we found transformative approaches to design through our slogan of “augment, amplify, activate.” A client had a new workspace designed by others, but then found it experientially flat. It satisfied the organizations, functions and facility metrics of the enterprise, but did nothing to change their culture and performance, which was the purpose of the project in the first place. Our slogan was a motivator to the occupiers and the designers to explore conceptual modifications to support behavioral change and development.

This sense of “augmentation” seems like a rich territory for exploration in design. A while back I had speculated on “the autoupdating workspace.” And more recently, a colleague raised a question about augmented reality which made me think in entirely different terms about the “productivity” of both the principal artifact of our service, digital “drawings,” and the activities that take place in the spaces and places we design. I’ve become increasingly interested in how to build layers on top of our digital design information and capture digital information from the physical spaces we design.

The Race Against the Machine

Related to the above, I’ve just finished reading Race Against the Machine, and am now both tremendously excited as well as terribly frightened.

The motivation for me is to begin to imagine the role of the workspace in assuring the race with the machine. Finding a strengthening signal in the requests we are getting from clients, there is an accelerating realization that space supports enterprise sustainability, but this is increasingly tied to the changes in the way we work together because of the extraordinary acceleration of technology.

We are now attracted to, and attractive to, clients whose enterprise is shaped around technologies that, yes, automate creativity. These enterprises are now, or soon will be, seeking spatial solutions well beyond the most advanced corporate real estate solutions.

The Singularity

And, of course, this.

Focus groups

I am not sure about this, but can’t stop thinking about it. That is, is Facebook a relevant a valuable data source for workspace design? It seems so logical to “crowdsource” criteria and concepts for a satisfying and uniquely productive work environment…how do we best do it?

…and, in case you were wondering

Why humans have chins

Some of what we’re working on now

November 29, 2011
Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design
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We are slowly getting around to updating some of the parts of this blog/web site that have gotten a bit stale, and hope to get this done by the end of the year. in the meantime, we’ve updates our “How” page with this information on some of our current activities. We’ll periodically post further updates and additional information on many of these subjects. If you have any thoughts, questions, or interest in these subjects, let us know in the comments, or by email.

The technical workplace
The spaces where lots of people in manufacturing, science, R&D, and other businesses and professions has been allowed to atrophy. We wonder if the aspirations we have for innovation, leadership and growth may be stunted by working spaces and places still guided by patterns and paradigms of process, hierarchy, supervision, status, institutional culture, and authority. If the places of invention became more like the places where invention is used, will we achieve more?

Fast, slow and spiky
We once thought that the right way to accommodate different generations in the workplace was by reference to paradigms around preferred officing form. But it’s not about age, it’s about pace. How should we think differently about the best ways to effectively engage different generations through new design principles in the workplace?

The campus in the city
This is an old model becoming new, again. The concept of the suburban corporate campus is dying, and universities are seeking to gain and deliver the benefits of community and market engagement. What should we be thinking about as the corporation takes on a new form and as gown returns to town?

Moving the CRE to HR
Under the finance function, corporate real estate pushed everybody out of the workplace. Now organizations want them back. Is CRE under HR the way?

How to think about the workplace in 2012
Not trend, but revolution. How this year will set a foundation for a new approach to workspace design.

Social connectivity as a driving value for the workspace
We learned something about “hubs,” “gate-keepers” and “pulse-takers,” and then we wrapped workplace designs around the uncovered network maps. Oops. Now it’s time to design workspaces to nurture new and continuously dynamic networks. How?

Gaming the workspace
Game designers work differently than you and I, and in a very different kind of workspace. But why? What can we “learn from Las Vegas” and from the world of game developers?

Redefining efficiency
When we’ve wrung out the real estate of the workplace, what’s left? How does “efficiency” shift from a bottom line metric to a top line driver? How does design help?

The 80/20 workplace
80% of how we work and communicate was not possible 5 years ago, but only 20% of workplace design has yet responded to this rapidly evolving change. What should we demand now to achieve the potential in the new tools and techniques of work?

Makers of virtual meeting spaces make them in face-to-face space

November 21, 2011
architecture, Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design
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Photo by Citrix via Adam Richardson

Perhaps relevant to our last post is this delightful interview by Adam Richardson that I found in a guest blog at the Harvard Business Review. Citrix, the makers of GoToMeeting, have a new collaboration space where the leading work in their innovation process is done. It is fascinating how the makers of virtual work spaces develop their process in carefully considered face-to-face space.

It is not a “crappy” space, and this is how they describe its benefits:

Opening the design collaboration space was a big milestone on our design thinking journey. It’s already played a key role in fostering a more collaborative culture that involves less over-the-wall processes, fewer silos, more and earlier collaboration, and better integration of design into the product development process.

We needed to create a shift in behaviors, and realized this would be best achieved by having people live the change, not just being told about it. The space facilitates this.

Perhaps most significantly, it seems to lie at that upper quadrant of my not-yet-finished diagram in our last post. That upper quadrant is where I speculate that “signature” form but “occupy the workplace” space can generate high performance and engagement.

The interior design is quite minimal. The “beauty” of the space comes from the work that happens inside it: sketches, flow charts, Post-Its full of blue-sky ideas, new product concepts from raw idea to real formation. The space was intentionally left not-too-perfect, so people are encouraged to manipulate it, not be precious about it. It’s intended to serve as a canvas for creative thinking. It’s also very flexible and can quickly change from working studio to lecture room.

It seems also to fit some speculation we were developing about “auto-updating” space.

Like all good design, iteration is part of the process. We have discovered that we do need a better system for engaging remote participants and better ways for capturing brainstorming and meeting notes in real time, so that others can see them later. This is something we are investigating for our next “release” in 2012.

Richardson’s interview is packed with information. I found at least 10 principles for a workplace designed for innovation –

  1. Align the design with your mission – with the “why” and not just the “what” of your business
  2. Relevance to all disciplines supports multidisciplinary work better
  3. Recognize that space shapes the behaviors you want
  4. Your space is an indicator of the authenticity of your purpose
  5. Agile and adaptable space is more valuable than CRE-regulated space
  6. Anytime space supports creativity better than assigned and scheduled space
  7. Casual space supports sharing and trust better
  8. Authentic space recruits
  9. Learn from others and engage users on your design team
  10. Good design strategy reinforces good strategy design

Let me know your thoughts on the article, and your own experience.

Have you thought about the design of your workspace in the same way that Steve Jobs must have?

August 29, 2011
architecture, Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design
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Steve Jobs, who radically transformed the architecture of computing (and almost everything else), is about to transform the culture and performance of Apple through physical architecture.

Jobs announced his retirement as CEO this week, and that generated a flood of appreciations, appraisals and analysis, mostly focused on what it was that he has done thus far. However, in what seemed to be the last significant act before announcing his retirement, Jobs appeared before the Cupertino California city council to present his proposal for the next headquarters of Apple. I assume this is the catalytic tool he will put in place to have resonating influence and impact on this organization well into the future.

I was fascinated with the design of his proposal, but I was mostly impressed with the choice he and his architect had made of basic form. That is, Jobs presented his proposal as a direct rejection of a campus approach to planning and instead spoke of the need to get everybody in the same place. Jobs’s presentation implied a frustration with the dispersion of his staff among many buildings in the area. In announcing that he had bought the HP campus where he first entered the business, he also said he was going to demolish all of its buildings.

His proposal was a single building on a significantly re-greened site. Much of the resulting chat in press and blogs was around its “spaceship” appearance, but it perhaps was most like the iPod click-wheel, a circle of a building to house 13,000 people – in somewhat older professional jargon that seems oddly pejorative these days, a megastructure.

I focused on this because, with colleagues over the past few weeks, I’ve been engaged in a discussion around the subject of “master plan.” A client has asked us to advise them on the development of properties they have that currently house their R&D operations. They are a company who have moved from the manufacture of mechanical devices to the development of highly sophisticated, globally-networked devices. They are a company who, in other words, are perceived as a manufacturer of devices but are, instead, a technology platform.

I’ve been in this place before. At two ends of the spectrum of big organization with roots in gritty manufacturing but transforming themselves, I’ve designed corporate homes in campuses and in megastructures. I’ve noted this:

  • If you need to reinforce the capabilities and competencies of a discipline, the campus is a good form
  • If you want to integrate the thinking of many disciplines, the megastructure (a unified building) is a good form

I cannot imagine that Steve Jobs with his architect, Sir Norman Foster, did not engage in hours upon hours of debate about form, culture, communications, intentions, transformations and the future. I cannot imagine that Jobs presented the design of his new company home without having deliberated about transformation as much as he has done with everything else he’s generated.

I cannot imagine that Jobs did not see the physical architecture of the workplace as influential and transformational as he did the design of Apple’s physical products that changed whole industries.

So, imagine that – after transforming computing, communications, music and publishing, what’s in the works after 13,000 people go to work in this new building?

Have you thought about your workspace in the same way that Steve Jobs must have?

Why the “office” no longer matters

August 25, 2011
Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design
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photo via WLCAdultGrad on flickr.com

Metropolis mag had this article today on Going Paperless in med schools. The Yale School of Medicine is giving each of its student an iPad to use in classroom and clinic. They will simultaneously eliminate all paper materials, which have burdened the institution with cost of more than $100,000 per year.

The article reflected on the potential impact on the traditional image of the bookbag toting student. I think the real impact of moves like this will not, however, be on the campus but on the workplace.

After huge numbers of university students spend the next couple of years without paper class materials, they will emerge into and finally fully transform the workplace. Their methods of working, communicating, collaborating and achieving will mean that they will approach the conventional workspace with a look of critical curiosity, wondering what this strange construct called the “modern” office is all about.

What I find especially significant here is that every day major investments are being made by corporations and institutions in workspaces that are losing value at an increasing rate. Designed for individuals processing paperwork, they are already irrelevant to how work is done today.

Those misplaced investments remove employees from access to the resources that really matter, and rob the people who work there of potential to grow their capabilities and contribute greater value to the purpose and achievements of their organizations.

It is shocking that corporate leaders do not recognize and kill this waste, especially in an economy that needs sustainable resource utilization.

It is shocking that everything about work has changed but very little of the workplace has.

things we saw this week that you might like, also

August 7, 2011
architecture, Design strategy, Detroit, Strategy design, urban, workplace design
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Among some of the things that caught our attention last week and that may influence our thinking this week are these –

This is a delightfully simple essay that illuminates the power of spatial experience in moving decisions and closing deals.
“The idea that cars run free…that idea’s about to change.” Sculptor Chris Burden has been working on this rather remarkable interpretation of “Metropolis” to evoke the energy of a city
This was a brief but interesting conversation about an apparent bias toward modernism in most design competitions in the UK. This question seems to have its own answer: “Should modernity be preferred precisely because it is innovative and forward thinking?”
This seemed an unlikely place to find a discussion about the “green workplace” but, once past the intro, is an interesting insight into the subject and, more significantly for me, how a bit of research required by an event led to a deep dive into a subject and then a globally recognized expertise.
Detroit is struggling to remake itself after decades of irrational and obsessive self-destruction by almost every leader, “civic” or private. We find it hard to accept this preferential apportioning of the limited resources the City has left, feeling it to be a better-dressed replay of prior practices.
Designer-driven innovation – This is a rather pretty concept to illustrate a debate about whether markets or vision are the optimum origins for innovation

How can criteria for ranking the world’s 10 most livable cities inform other places?

July 27, 2011
architecture, Design strategy, Strategy design, urban, workplace design
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Greg Colson - Stick Maps - Cleveland (1991)

Monocle magazine periodically publishes city rankings. Reflecting on the way to developing a list of the world’s 10 most livable cities, Tyler Brule came up with an unexpected list of criteria (presented here). The introduction to his column in the Financial Times offers the context –

Sometime between writing last week’s column and settling down to tap out today’s I had a slight change of heart about the essential ingredients regarding quality of life. While cities get high marks if they have low crime rates, good public schools, smooth-running buses, trams and subways, and if they offer a healthy climate for starting up a small business, my daily holiday regime on the coast of Tuscany had me questioning whether there should be simpler measures to judge whether a city is delightfully liveable.

On Brule’s “simple measures” list are things such as sufficient water pressure to get a good blast in the shower, great orange juice, public seating, and good windows.

It is very rare, it seems, that we reflect on the simple things that can improve our own environments and those we design for others. Most frequently, the dominant criteria are abstract metrics imposed by the providers of space rather than the experiential metrics of those who live and work in the spaces we design.

Consider Brule’s point of view, your daily regime when in your favorite vacation spot – How can these experiences overcome your typical demands of the workplace and influence a different approach to its design?

10 ideas for better design competitions that inform better projects, too

July 24, 2011
architecture, Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design
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Situationist Drawing Device Exploded Diagram by Ji Soo Han

The go-nogo debate, when considering responding to a Request for Proposal, includes an assessment of the capacity of the firm to respond to the context of the request. That is, do we have the ability to respond with sufficient ideational and representational robustness to deliver what the client seeks? Can we get what they want done done in the time they want it done?

The RFP we were considering had at least one member of our team saying no. I think the measure of his response was based on a conventional method of developing a project and the sequences of development, presentation and approval.

I took a different tack, and thought that the time frame demanded an approach similar to developing a submission to a design competition. Competitions, never sufficiently resourced, demand an energy and focus that is distinct from normal project processes. We produce creative and innovative ideas and use critical and spare methods to present them in a very compressed time.

It made me wonder, also, why we do not use such effective processes in the normal course of our work.

Coincidentally, writing in the Design Observer, John Thackara reflected on his experience as a juror in design competitions. He observed ten faults in the way competitions are staged, and offered ten suggestions for improvement.

I offer a link to them here, because I think that his suggestions to improve the process also inform the way we do our work in other contexts. In a quick companion to Thackara’s list, here are some rough starter thoughts of our own:

  1. Consider the client’s design brief, his program, as a challenge. If we haven’t written the program, it is probable that it does not contain much of an articulation of what the client is trying to do and why. Nor will it contain much about how the client sees themselves and their project in a larger context of business, society, culture and history. We, however, have been brought into our profession with a rich background that places architecture and its practice in that larger context. We are also critical, in a thoughtful way, about how much of the world around us could be improved. Why not approach our client’s project in this way?
  2. Take the opportunity to develop a rich set of internal connections, seeing the project not just for production, but also for development. The time and fees that set the context for project design and delivery are immediately limiting and compromising. They force us to focus on deliberate and efficient processes, and the team is set to produce. Projects, however, offer the opportunity for rich connections between people and great opportunities to develop and improve skills and aptitudes. There is no compromise to the project and, indeed, great probable benefit to it by paying attention to individual and team development opportunities as the project progresses.
  3. Identify something in the project brief that evokes attention and commitment to meaningfully advance the quality of daily life. Every day, millions of people do things in the buildings we design. Make thoughts about how their lives are enriched or improved by designing the life of the building after occupancy, and not just the processes that put it on the earth.
  4. Invite other disciplines as co-designers, not just as consultants. We tend to parcel out tasks to consultants whom we’ve invited to the project for their own perceptions, knowledge and reflection. Using them as co-designers, however, enriches what we do and what we can achieve by drawing them to a great intimacy with the purpose and mission of the project.
  5. Consider the project beyond its footprint. Every building exists in, is influenced by and, in turn, influences a broader context of connections over time.  Consider the building as a tool and understand how, beyond occupancy, it can assist what others are trying to do , as well.
  6. Research the real world. If we engage in research before designing, we tend to look at typologies, styles and solutions. But the projects we look at have themselves been commissioned to do certain things and, as we know, have influenced other moves that may not have been initially intended. Seeing them and learning from them in this real world context can contribute considerations for a much more robust design solution.
  7. Make stories about life in the building, not just about the development of form. We can improve the performance of our clients, the return on their resources and their own development as patrons by imagining the life that people will live in these environment, and telling stories that inform why certain design decisions were made with those stories in consideration.
  8. Discuss the criteria for success with the client. Help him develop his own critical mindset about a more meaningful future in the process.
  9. Engage others. We once invited friends of our designers to come to a presentation of our work and offered them the opportunity to comment on it. I do not know why we do not do this more. We engage the support of others on our Boards. why not engage generous outsiders to perform a similar role of adviser or commentator on what we do?
  10. Engage project management as stewardship. Beyond the management, application and control of ours and our clients resources on projects (on time, on budget) consider the longer life, role and importance of the building and act as stewards of its success.

As always, I’ll appreciate hearing your thoughts. What can we learn from our experience with design competitions to inform how we approach projects in daily work?

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