Do you ever feel that you either have to come in early or stay late to get the 'real' work done? Does it seem that every minute of the day is gobbled up by phone calls, meetings and people saying 'Have you got a minute'?
As I talk to business people in all industries and at all levels it seems that interruptions are the single biggest issue. We've come out of the dark ages where managers never communicated anything to their underlings, through the development of open communication and empowerment, to the point where many people feel they have to 'be available' all day.
Open plan layouts compound the problem. They appear to be a good idea. It's easy to communicate with your team, problems can be shared rapidly, expensive floor space is saved, and internal partitioning is relatively inexpensive. BUT - they create another whole raft of problems, headed by interruptions. As with any fashion, the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other. I believe this one has gone too far. Open and free communication is great - but not THAT great! However, there are ways, thank goodness, to minimise the down side.
How much more work would you get done if you had one uninterrupted hour a day? Does this sound good? It's easy to achieve. Create a company culture of 'Red Time/Green Time'. Translated, this means that everyone gets an hour a day when no one is allowed to interrupt. Colleagues take your calls, no interruptions are allowed from either internal or external sources, and you can concentrate on the 'real' work, or the 'thinking' work, which is impossible to do when fifty thousand people keep interrupting you. Basically, you're in a meeting - with yourself.
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