Change Your Space, Change Your Culture: How Engaging Workspaces Lead to Transformation and Growth

Chapter 3Something Wicked This Way Comes

Efficiency versus effectiveness has always been at odds. For the last five hundred years, the numbers have favored efficiency. In an era of wicked problems, the balance has shifted. Sustainable results highly favor the effectiveness mind-set.

—Case4Space

Jim was clearly frustrated. Plans to build a new community center were spiraling out of control. Six months after the initial budget was presented, project costs had increased by 50 percent, and work was already months behind before final plans had been finished. Weekly project meetings delivered a predictable mantra. Each company reported the most recent changes, along with new cost estimates, and the numbers seemed always to go higher. Jim's team had reached a discouraging crossroads. They might have to pull the plug on the project, letting down a community with high hopes and in desperate need of its services. If it came to this, the decision would severely damage the years of trust they had built.

This common story is what happens when a complicated process confronts a complex problem. It was clear that continuing to send each company back to its office to find more savings had run its course. Fortunately Jim's team found a way to break through the complexity. Jim asked the team to set aside a full day for a different kind of meeting. Instead of each trade reporting their progress in the usual ritual, the session would become a joint design and budgeting session. Each trade's problem ...