If you want people to talk, you have to give them a fighting chance by putting them in relative proximity. 

In one series of R&D Centres I re-organised, the site was a pilot plant for the industrial processes but was scattered over a 1 mile length of road with functional groups in individual buildings.  This reinforced the national and company culture of communication only at the Group Head level – resulting in some of the worst communication based problems I have seen.  It wasn’t a case of what should we be doing now – more a case of what the heck are we doing now?

There was some work done that showed that the probability of communication between two individuals was significantly lower if they were in different groups and decayed rapidly based on physical distance.  In the example above, I can tell you that I didn’t fancy walking to the end of the site on a cold rainy day. 

As a secure site – I suggested they invest in some bicycles to speed people around the site and some umbrellas to take from building to building to reduce the impact of bad weather on the internal communication.

Was the communication that bad?  Well – they sent around 90,000 emails a month from that site for 450 people.  That’s (hang on – can’t type and count with my fingers at the same time) 200 emails a month per person or 10 a day total (that’s in and out).  Are you dealing with writing/receiving 10 emails a day?  Thought not!  See what I mean – they stayed in their offices, didn’t talk and didn’t email.

© Copyright 2005 Richard A D Jones