Dr Darryl's Blog

When the "Herald-Sun" from Sydney asked me what I thought about office open plan, it was a request too good to refuse. For years now, I have considered that office open plan that came in about 15 years ago (as I recall) was not in employees' best interests, but was really about the company both cutting its bottom line (it's cheaper with less internal infra-structure and we can herd more people into less space) together with an element of being able to "watch" everyone.

Why doesn't open space work? We get distracted and are more easily interrupted (both visual and auditory) which affects productivity, and we also lack privacy, as well as the fact that we like to have our own space or territory, all of which ultimately affects morale. Doctor John Medina in his brilliant book, "Brain Rules" says quite clearly that our brains are not wired to do multi-tasking ie., paying attention to more than one thing at a time (I know that one radio commentator said to me today that woman are very good at multi-tasking, but for the record, Doctor Medina says that they actually have good working memories capable of paying attention to several inputs at one time.) For most of us though, we have difficulty focusing on more than one thing. That's why we say when we've been interrupted and we need to get back to it, something like, "Now where was I?"

But here's the kicker re open plan offices. Studies show that a person who is interrupted takes 50% longer to accomplish a task. Not only that, he or she makes up to 50% more errors.

On top of that is the "Hot desk" where staff are not allocated a permanent spot to work and need to take whatever is available. All the issues with open plan are only accentuated with this notion. What on earth are managers thinking?

Still, it is trendy to have open plan offices. Let's see how long it will take for the wheel to finally turn back to closed offices.

Someone asked me this week, "How is it that there seems to be so much strife in families recently, especially as we've seen it played out in the media?"

What they're referring to is child abuse, child neglect, children who are devoid of social skills and who are not loved or cared for.

There is no one answer, but there is a definite trend that can be observed. There has been, what has been called by some, "social engineering" or "liberalism" where there has been a slow erosion of family values. This has happened slowly over time. It is insidious and often sinister.

Take just a few issues:

• Poker machines are introduced with the suggestion that because we're all adults or big people, that we can control our impulses to gamble -- just tell that to the the young man who has lost his wife and family as well as the family home through compulsive gambling.

• Easy access to condoms, the pill and the morning after pill encouraging adolescents to explore and try it out -- tell that to young adolescent mothers.

• With drugs, a philosophy of "harm minimisation" that says something like "as long as they don't do themselves too much harm" then it's ok -- tell that to the addict who has lost everything.

• Legalisation of marijuana -- it's safe in small quantities -- tell that to the school drop-out who can't concentrate now, who hallucinates and who is developing a psychosis from substance abuse.

It's like we've said to a small child, "Here's a box of matches. Go play with them, but be careful and use them wisely." All this means is that we become desensitised to how to really live life effectively.

We're heading for a train wreck as a community.

What's the answer? Seems like there a few places where politicians have finally made a stand and where the government and the family have stood together and built a community on the same sorts of values. Take Singapore. It's safe and secure. I understand that places like Vancouver are similar.

There are some answers there. But do we have any pollies or leaders willing to stand up?