What Would You Do If You Could Start From Scratch?
Posted on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 by Frank RocheIf you had to design your company (and HR) from scratch, would you:
–have performance reviews?
–build walls in your offices?
–ever use the word “boss” in a non-ironic way?
–hire average employees?
–keep a slacker?
–write a bereavement policy?
–pay women less than men?
–pay anyone unfairly?
–conduct “warm body” recruiting?
–hire more HR people to make up for bad managers?
–keep bad managers?
–use the word “engagement”?
–have so many layers?
–have chairs in your meeting rooms?
–have a policy manual?
Just wondering. What would you do if you could start from scratch? As George Clooney’s character said asked in “Up In the Air,” what would you keep in your backpack?
fran melmed
Feb 2nd, 2010
i’d design a workplace that looked and operated like an excellent preschool. it would have a fun, colorful, and fluid design, with work stations that aided imagination, exchange, and collaboration. it would be a place that understand play *is* learning. that assuming new roles lets us process information, test ideas, and find out who we want to be. one that accepted we sometimes cry at the door when we have to leave our loved ones and where we soon get over it because we realize we are with people we enjoy.
aren’t i idealistic?!
f
Frank Roche
Feb 2nd, 2010
Fran…that is so perfect. It’s so funny, I was talking to a friend this weekend who told me that a lot of what I say about business sounds like Montessori. (My kids all attended Montessori.) How fun your place would be.
fran melmed
Feb 2nd, 2010
i don’t know how forgot these other must-haves: field trips, naps, and costumes. sheesh.
Frank Roche
Feb 2nd, 2010
Naps. Especially naps.
Emily Wartchow
Feb 2nd, 2010
I’d have an exchange program, where you invite interesting people who see the world in different ways to come hang out with you for a week or two, bringing a breath, a glup or a slug of fresh air to what you do, how you think about it and how it connects to bigger things. And then you can do the same for them.
Frank Roche
Feb 2nd, 2010
Emily…that is really a great idea…a creativity exchange. Wow…I want to do that right away…we already encourage naps here, so we have that whipped.
Wally Bock
Feb 3rd, 2010
Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best independent business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.
http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2010/02/03/2310-midweek-look-at-the-independent-business-blogs.aspx
Wally Bock
Frank Roche
Feb 4th, 2010
Thanks so much, Wally.