Published in The Attention Architect, a newsletter on LinkedIn, April 19, 20 22

“Only an architect would obsess about the design of the telephone handset or how the numbers look on the keypad instead of how the phone system functions,” my father remarked.

When I set out to buy a new phone system for our growing company, the appearance of what it looked like on people’s desktops was my top priority.

It was the early 1990s, and we didn’t have access to the world-wide-web yet to search for the perfect product solutions. Instead, we had to dig through catalogs, go to office equipment showrooms, or wait for the traveling salesperson to come around with their product samples.

But when I found a stylish-looking phone system in a magazine, I was ready to buy it. However, before committing to such an expensive piece of equipment, I needed to check out the seller’s office. This investigation was the standard due diligence most organizations went through to ensure the companies you did business with were legitimate.

I set up a meeting to visit the company’s office, brought my checkbook with me, and was ready to buy! But their offices looked like a “boiler room” for selling speculative stocks. There was no lobby, conference room, or receptionist — just several guys in short-sleeved shirts making calls from a big table, which would look normal today.

I inconspicuously slipped my checkbook back into my briefcase and told the company representative, “We’d be in touch.” But as much as I liked the phone system, their offices made me uneasy, so I pursued another system at an office equipment showroom.

Fair or not, that’s how the business world worked back then. We judged a company by their offices. My customers did it to me, and I did it to my vendors.

The better your office address, the more prominent and established it meant your company was. And the fancier and more successful your offices looked inside, the more in-demand people assumed your business was.

But that’s not how business works today. Most of us don’t even know where our products come from, much less what our service providers’ offices look like inside. 

I work with several law firms, accountants, banks, and vendors that I talk to weekly by phone. We know about each other’s kids, dogs, and favorite sports teams. But I’ve never stepped foot in their offices before. For all I know, they could work out of a trailer park near the city dump in their boxer shorts and nightgowns.

Today, our clients judge us less by our office presentation and more by our online presence, visibility, and reputation. Yet, many businesses still debate the swanky office approach.

THE CATALYST

As an architect, I believe in the power of place. But I don’t subscribe to the fancy office paradigm anymore. It’s not just the cost of these facilities but also the ant-like routine of commuting single-file in our cars to an office like automatons.

Work can happen anytime and anyplace nowadays.

Things were already changing before the pandemic. But now that we’ve had almost three years to work office-less, we’ve seen ample evidence that many businesses can still function and perform with their workforce at a distance.

It’s no longer imperative to have a high-profile office building on State and Main Street. Nor is it required to have employees commute hours each day because the city your office is in has such a high cost of living that nobody can afford to live there.

Before the pandemic, our business kept growing year over year. But we noticed our clients were coming into the office less and less. This reduction in client visits had a lot to do with the increasing ease and convenience of conducting meetings online. And the pandemic only accelerated that trend. However, I will admit the quality of our meetings and interaction were not as effective online, so figuring out this question of building offices is not an easy issue to address.

THE ILLUSION OF SUCCESS

In past eras, companies spent substantial sums on their office locations and interior upfits. Why? To impress and seduce their customers into working with them. In many cases the office was a “smoke and mirrors” illusion to attract and secure business.

But now that the “office-as-seducer” plays a less critical role in shaping the customer’s impression, many businesses will focus on establishing workplaces that cost less and make employees’ lives more comfortable.

Our company sold our two large, bi-coastal office facilities right before the pandemic hit. And we’ve downgraded to smaller, more spartan office facilities. We’ve had to edit out many of our traditional office components, but the change is good.

Our two offices now serve as a fort and clubhouse for colleagues to come together a few times a week to brainstorm, collaborate, and mix and mingle. We have one big conference room for the occasional “dog and pony shows” for clients. But other than that, we don’t foresee clients dropping by the office as much they used to do in prior eras. Most of our client interactions will continue to happen online, as they have for the last two years.

WHAT ABOUT WFH?

While the office’s role has changed, we don’t believe working from home every day will be ideal for all people or businesses.

First, workers miss having in-person conversations with their coworkers. Without this human interaction, everything becomes less relational and more transactional, dehumanizing business.

Secondly, while the relationship bonds and synergies with mature staff who we have worked and traveled with for years, if not decades, together are strong, my concern is how younger people get to learn about business, leadership styles, and dealing with problems. While they may see each other online, they miss the subtle clues and critical nuances of human communication and interaction vital to understanding behavior. Are younger employees complaining about this? No, because they’ve never had it any other way, but that's not a good thing.

Thirdly, many people are going stir crazy working from home every day. While it’s been nice to work in our pajamas and sweat pants all day, WFH has compromised the meaning of our “homes” as a sacred place and a refuge from work, not a reminder of it.

Having your work a few steps away from our living rooms or bedrooms is not psychologically healthy for many people. Creating a physical distance between “work” and “home” helps us get a mental and physical break from it.

There’s something ceremonial about the act of leaving your home and “going to work” that helps shift the gears from one state of mind to the other. It gets your head in the right frame of mind, like going to the gym. And it allows you to put on your “masters of the universe” mask at work and then strip off the superhero outfit on your way back home.

While the famous bodybuilder, Arnold Schwarzenegger, had the means to build a state-of-the-art gym at home during his prime, he wouldn’t do it. He believed the physical act of packing up his gym bag and heading to the gym was critical to his success.

Arnold noticed that being around other hungry, disciplined, and competitive bodybuilders brought out his competitive drive as an athlete. Seeing his peers “put in a hard day’s work” to become champions motivated him to improve his craft. 

The same goes for the act of “going to work” and seeing your coworkers attack their job assignments with passion and vigor.

THE COST

2020 will go down as the year the high-profile office paradigm came tumbling down like an avalanche. While the prestigious office buildings are still standing, many of these expensive assets are underutilized. And many companies and workers are reluctant to jump back into the old office grind once the pandemic passes.

But the cost of this radical change in how we work comes at a significant price.

It’s not just the developers and investors hurting from the office market downturn. There’s a sizable impact on average citizens who unknowingly have their retirement dollars, 401ks, and IRA’s invested in real estate stocks and REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts).

A whole sub-economy of small businesses, mom-and-pop shops, hotels, restaurants, and bars rely on the daily foot traffic office buildings generate. And maintenance crews, cleaning staff, window washers, parking attendants, security guards, carpet installers, and telephone/IT equipment suppliers are all impacted by the daily office workers’ absence.

Cities and urban work centers depend on the daily revenue and tax base of office buildings to fund municipal services, such as police officers, firefighters, trash collection, schools, parks, and more.

TIME TO GET ON BOARD

The pandemic has forced and taught businesses what we can achieve without office cubicles, conference rooms, drop ceilings, parking decks, elevators, break rooms, and vending machines. And the crisis has helped us contemplate a better work/life balance.

But as a society, we’re going to have to re-envision what we can do with all these office building assets, which our firm and other architects are working on as I write this.

We’re at the forefront of a fundamental change in how we’ll work, create value, and interact with each other post-pandemic, but there’s still a lot to figure out.

Despite the intense costs of this shift, we couldn’t stop this evolution even if we tried. Businesses have a knack for identifying inefficiencies and seeking higher performance levels and the financial and personal costs of the traditional office building model don’t work for everyone now.

Employees want the flexibility of working from home or going into a collaborative workplace a few times a week, and companies want to bring down the costs of doing business. And what people and businesses want is what the market eventually delivers. We’re just here a lot quicker than we imagined.

My recommendation to entrepreneurs is to let go of the past office model and embrace this opportunity to reimagine how we can work smarter and better in the future while maintaining the human qualities of relationships.