with many unpredictable elements, profit most from an orderly and stable environment, because these tasks demand more of our undivided attention.
Overall, this physical layout should provide good physical work conditions, in the sense of lighting, sound, temperature, seating comfort, effort in using the equipment, air quality and so on.
The relationship between the physical environment and our habitual behavior is of a dialectical nature, in the sense that the way in which we design our environment and how we behave mutually determine each other. So the way our workplace is designed very much determines how we walk, where we sit, as well as what we see, hear and feel (see Chapter 3). The other way around, we design and furniture our workplace in a way that accommodates our preferred routines. As we saw in Chapter 3, we manufacture normality and everydayness in our life by continuously repeating ourselves and by a strict discipline of attention. As we repeat ourselves in a remarkably strict, more or less ritualized way, our habitual behavior becomes an all-important source of orderliness as well, to ourselves but also to others.
Too Little Orderliness
Too little orderliness may seriously hamper our effectiveness, for example when several issues fight for our attention, making it impossible to attend to a single issue long enough to deal with it properly. In such a situation, we are supposed to keep all loose ends in our head so we can return to them when we get the opportunity later on, while many tracks just stop somewhere. Also, we are exposed to ambiguous and inconsistent cues, which may put us on the wrong track. Furthermore, things around us go wrong, are changed, still do not work and are changed again. We witness some colleagues handling things badly and we step in, or at least are tempted to do so. Some people just love chaos and are very good at handling it. To others, work degenerates into an endless succession of daily hassles (Kanneret al., 1981), which destroys the effectiveness of their functioning.
Too little orderliness can be found in all kinds of professional firms, stock exchanges, dealing rooms of merchant banks, advertising agencies and in the media (television studios and editorial offices). Too little orderliness is often caused by change as well, for example in times of (successive) reorganizations and mergers. In reorganizations and mergers the old rules no longer apply while new ones still have to be developed, which of course implies the breakdown of orderliness. Moreover, in such cases there are all kinds of rumors about changes of jobs and departments, early retirements and layoffs, which easily divert our attention from our work. Too little orderliness may have very diverse causes, which can reinforce each other as well. We discuss some examples below.
Dysfunctional Work Conditions
If a work environment does not provide the right lighting, temperature, auditory and olfactory conditions, as well as the proper furniture and equipment to do the job properly, it interferes with the proper division of attention for the tasks and can disturb the effectiveness of operations. Such an environment can disrupt our well-being and health too. Moreover, it signals that the organization is not in order and does not care much for us. Something similar is the case when we are annoyed by the dirtiness or disarray of our work environment.
Broken or Ill-Functioning Tools and Apparatuses
When a tool or apparatus that we need for our work is functioning poorly or not at all, we can’t go on with our task as planned until it is mended. Apart from the fact that this can be very frustrating, can ruin our mood and in the longer run can damage our health too, it obviously disrupts the effectiveness of our functioning.
Flexible Workplace
In order to make maximal use of the available work stations in offices where employees are only present part-time, some organizations use flexible workplaces. Apart from the fact that having to work at a different work station in itself can interfere with orderliness, not all places are equally appealing to everybody and it does happen that all stations are occupied.
All of this may interfere with effective functioning.
Flexible Working Hours
Flexible working hours can interfere with the orderliness and effectiveness of our work in several ways. First, our working hours have a variable place in our daily rhythm, which influences our activity and alertness, certainly when we have to get up early. Secondly, flexible working hours can lead to being unable to reach the colleagues and staff we need to interact with to do our job properly. Thirdly, flexible working hours interfere with family life and periodic leisure activities and pastimes. All of this can be become worse when the daily work is divided in parts with ‘free’ periods in between.
Being a Member of a ‘Pool’
Some organizations that place a high value on flexibility organize support staff, such as secretaries, in a pool so that they work for different people in different departments.
This arrangement effectively prevents them from building up any thorough knowledge of the specific tasks of each department. Installing such a pool leads to an undesirable annihilation of useful knowledge as well. In practice, working in a pool can even mean that a secretary works every day for somebody else, without much possibility of properly finishing a somewhat extended assignment. Working in a pool also prevents support staff from building appropriate relationships with the people they work for. As a result, they only do the simplest of tasks for different employees, time after time, not using and developing their skills.
A New or Fast-Growing Organization
In a new organization, it is not unusual that everybody does everything. The same occurs in a rapidly growing organization. In both cases there is a lack of structure, standard procedures and specialist, well-trained employees. Consequently, everybody is terribly busy reinventing the wheel, while the pace at which things get done is far from impressive.
High Sick Leave, Staff Turnover or Many Temporary Employees
In an organization with high levels of sick leave, staff turnover or a high proportion of employees on temporary contracts, those employees with longer tenure are often exclusively busy filling holes and putting out the most acute fires in a completely unpredictable and chaotic order. In addition, they have to break in new people and hardly have any time left to do their own work. Moreover, many of the newly trained employees leave after a short time, which makes the efforts of breaking them in no more rewarding and meaningful. All these activities can have a cumulative adverse effect. Moreover, in an organization with high sick leave and staff turnover more things tend to go wrong: high sick leave and staff turnover can be considered a case of voting with one’s feet.
Checklist 4.4Too little orderliness
Yes
Bad physical work conditions . . .
A dirty work environment . . .
A messy work environment . . .
Being a member of a pool, working for different people or departments . . .
Ill-functioning or non-functioning equipment . . .
No clear place to work . . .
Variable working hours . . .
Many things around you going wrong . . .
Too many issues in your environment that fight for your attention . . .
A new organization . . .
A fast-growing organization . . .
High absenteeism . . .
High staff turnover . . .
Having to break in new (temporary) colleagues frequently . . .
Too Much Emphasis on Orderliness
Too much orderliness in the work environment means that orderliness demands so much attention that it can obscure the original goal, namely getting the actual task done. Order- liness then turns into a goal in itself. Sticking to time-consuming orderly procedures, with their checks and double checks, leads also to a severe limitation of what we are allowed to do. As a result, it may interfere with work being carried out effectively and efficiently, which manifests itself, for example, in problems of internal and external communication,
‘political’ relationships, slow decision making and stagnation of projects. These problems present themselves as unchangeable data, ruled by relentless and indifferent natural laws, and are characteristic of bureaucracies.
People working in such organizations develop a good eye for rank, status symbols, movements up and down the hierarchy and the possibilities and dangers that these imply.
There is much political jargon, of a somewhat legalistic nature, some difficult words and little concrete content. This is the language of a permanent conspiracy, with its inherent suspicion and fear of outsiders: when too much orderliness makes it impossible to deal with issues in a forthright manner, it has to be done otherwise.
When a outsider asks an employee of a bureaucratic organization – with whom he gets on quite well – a factual question about their work, the outsider often experiences a kind of praecox Gef¨uhl, the feeling that it is impossible to make contact and relate. This pre-war term was used as indication that the other person was suffering from ‘dementia praecox’ or schizophrenia, as it is now called (Grube, 2006).
At the individual level, too much orderliness leads to hiding emotions, denial of prob- lems and conflicts stemming from annoying occasions in the past. Too much orderliness is characterized by a ritual way of working, just going through the motions, following conventions, disapproving ostentatiously of deviations, without paying much attention to – or even disdaining – outcomes and results. Moreover, many colleagues are bored and will not take any risks, afraid as they are to make a bad impression. Nevertheless they want everything to go their way and such a system offers many possibilities for this. Many people, however, eventually cannot stand such a way of working. They complain about a high workload, and many suffer from alienation and aversion. Because deviant moods and activity states are contagious (Hatfield, Cacioppo & Rapson, 1994; Kiritz & Moos, 1981;
Meerloo, 1972; Schabracq, 1987, 1991), this may have a serious paralyzing effect.
This condition of too much orderliness is common in big bureaucratic organizations, such as ministries and other public and semi-public organizations, but also in multinational companies and other organizations with a rigid hierarchy, such as military and paramilitary organizations and some churches. The causes are obvious: too many rules and too strict a hierarchy with very precisely delineated communication lines and responsibilities. Such a culture has much to offer to people who want to reach the top, just to obtain power (status, prestige and influence), certainty and, in some cases, money.
Checklist 4.5Too much emphasis on orderliness
Yes
Too many regulations . . .
Too strict a hierarchy . . .
Too rigid job descriptions . . .
Too little room to make your own decisions . . .
Too strict supervision and monitoring . . .
Having to get approval from too many people to get anything done . . . Colleagues who are very afraid to make a bad impression . . .
Too precisely delineated communication lines . . .
Colleagues who just go through the motions . . .
A taboo on displaying emotions . . .
Suspicion of strangers . . .
Denial of problems . . .
Emphasis on conventions . . .
Colleagues who do not want to take any risks . . .
A very formal way of working . . .