Flash: Our newest Design Book, 'The ErgoDynamic Work Place Quiz, Improving Performance and Loyalty Through Motivational Design' is now available digitally and in print through Amazon.
The Ergo(n) Dynamic Work Space Quiz
How much is Your Workspace Affecting Your Performance?
Most people can improve their effectiveness and satisfaction by at least 20% through making simple changes in their working environment. This fast moving uses props, moving furniture and slides demonstrates how team positioning influences performance and how to create a more powerful workplace as simple as one, two, three. To contact us about a presentationcall: 707-235-2648 or email or use the form below.Based in the San Francisco Bay area. Cost in the Bay area is $2500.00.
Work place arrangements support who we were, not who we want to be! You can change that easily!
The Quiz Questions
1)Where are your family photos in your workspace? 2) What kind of lighting do you use? 3) How are you positioned in relation to the door? 4) How physically comfortable is your desk? 5) How do you see & interact with your Team? 6) Does what you see inspire your work? 7) What cardinal direction do you face?
The audience follows along while filling out their multiple choice Quiz, which evaluates their choices, and then recommends action steps, and a description of their projected benefits. Experience has shown that if a person can implement at least three of these simple changes within thirty days they will quickly perform at a substantially better level.
This approach is based on research in Ergonomics, Kinesiology, Color Theory, Bau Biology and Business Practices. It is a fun, action packed, interactive, multi-media workshop that engages the audience on several levels and leaves them with tools in their hands to apply this knowledge in their current and future work places.
To read more about our books click here. To read our articles continue below.
There is power in the way we shape our workplace when we do that with a clear purpose. It is a tool that every leader needs to use. The old office design rules that were developed when workers were tied to a location for an entire career have been blown apart by dramatic changes in office technology. Today's information management systems allow people to change workplaces with greater frequency; it's a lot easier to move a laptop than a half ton of filing cabinets. Workers need to create or adapt new work environments often, and few know how to do that in a way that maximizes their talents.
This skill gap results in increased stress, wasted time, fuzzy focus, indifferent cooperation, poor skill development, lack of commitment, insipid morale, employee fraud, increased sick time and the inability to retain quality personnel! How many of these problems have crept into the corners of today's organizations? We do a high energy, multi-media presentation that unfolds across the stage in a series of practical demonstrations.
Using desk and chairs, door and windows, and an array of common office tools, we cover the ABC's for making offices function at a higher level of effectiveness. The presentation is filled with movement, interaction, props and slides that engage the audience and hold their attention. They come away with a check list ready to make personal improvements.
Questions that the presentation answers:
What helps the team get up to speed faster? What creates a smoothly functioning organization? Which desk positions enhance communication and cooperation? How do you get people to listen to you? How to reduce debilitating stress while increasing personal performance? How imbue the team with the company mission? How to make these changes easily? How does positioning affect ethical behavior?
Highly Motivated Design in the Officesmoothes out the work process by using the environment as a motivational tool. Call us to schedule your presentation and let us show your team how easy it is to reap the benefits that these techniques offer your organization. Philosophy: This approach is based on a unique and eclectic mix of ergonomics, anatomy, physiology and kinesiology. It has been refined through studies, testing and experience in thousands of work places. Ralph and Lahni de Amicis are professional speakers who, since the early 1990's, have presented thousands of speeches on the variety of subjects covered by their numerous published books on design, health, business and travel. To book a presentation please call then at 707-235-2648or email (keeping in mind the iffy nature of email) today.When you book your presentation ask us about our wonderful tours of the Napa and Sonoma Wine Country through Amicis Winery Tours for your executive staff and as incentive programs. Speakers Bio: Drs. Ralph & Lahni de Amicis are authors, professional speakers and consultants who specialize in environmental design and health. Besides conducting hundreds of public seminars, they have lectured extensively at international conferences. They are authors of thousands of articles, ten plus books and many successful audio programs.
They were the directors for seven years of one of America's most innovative Environmental design programs based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their current offices are in SonomaCalifornia. Their area of focus has always been on the art and science of improving the well being and effectiveness of individuals and teams through home and workplace design, nutrition and business skills. They appear frequently on television and radio. Call us at 707-235-2648 or email us. www.SpaceAndTime.com
The Importance of Signs
Before the advent of the free address, anonymous office whenever you arrived in a work space there were signs on the doors and desks that said things like, ‘Director of Something or Other’.When you walked inside an executive’s office the person’s name plaque was on their desk. The ‘director’ sign stayed with the room while the personal sign traveled with the worker from post to post.
Signs are important, a sign on your work room door makes you stand a little straighter and think in a business-like way every time you see it, even if you work in a home office with no co-workers around. In the home office it stakes out your working territory and sends the message that behind that sign you are at work; when they disturb you it’s costing somebody money. Signs remind everyone, including you of your place in the organization and your responsibilities. This system of signs was developed way before lap tops, thumb drives and web-based back up information storage, so you might think they are obsolete, but that’s your head talking. Even if you communicate with your team via group emails your body wants clearly marked signs to navigate your work space because it helps you feel secure within the team hierarchy. When people feel they belong and are supported by their group they perform better; signs do that and having a biography and photo on the company website doesn’t carry that kind of emotional oomph.
When the Go to Office Became the Go to Guy
Even with the mobility of today’s communication devices, most businesses are still dependent on stable locations for part of their operations, because people have to be someplace. Although we once dreamed of a paperless office, storage companies still make lots of money keeping old records dry. Most workers still need flat surfaces to work on, filing cabinets and specialized tools.
The situation has improved, after WWII office furniture was designed like battleships, grey and heavy; Bell Tell owned the telephones, laptop computers were called slide rules and you couldn’t bring a telephone with you. Businesses only changed locations when they had to.
Although many businesses are still location dependent, for many industries the shift has from their location being all-important, the corner store, to their team’s performance and technology being the power driving the engine. That is why it so important to be fluent in the language of design controlling work place dynamics.
The Left and Right Message
What is the message in a desk position? If instead of facing the desk at the door we tilted it left, so the person’s right side is open to those entering, what does that say?
It says ‘I’m a mover and a shaker. I’m ready to jump up at a moment’s notice and head out that door to bring products to my customers. I’m the person who expands my company’s reach, market and power’. How does it say that? Because the right-side of the body is the muscular, armored side! In boxing you hold the left hand close to protect the body, while the right hand reaches out to attack. We offer our right hand in greeting because it is our less vulnerable side.
‘Hi, my name is Ralph, can I sell you something? Trust me, you’ll love it’!
Let’s spin the desk the other way. What does it say when your left-side is open to the entrance?It says, ‘I receive, I accept, I’m open to what you bring me and I’ll provide guidance and help because of our emotional connection’. The left side is where we feel our beating heart, it is the more emotional and responsive side of the body.
Think of it this way: We hold a new baby on our left side so they sense the beating of our heart, emulating the protective environment of the mother’s womb. You can’t get much more nurturing than that! Meanwhile the right side of the body is stronger and tougher, so that’s the side that we use to fend off the offers of others to hold the baby, until they start crying of course.
Back to work, when we put our left side towards the entrance it says ‘welcome in, I’ll be here, I’ll listen to you, and together we’ll solve your problems. It is not about jumping up and leaving the space, it is about being there and accessible.
When you face the door, either directly, or angled left or right, it says you are facing the outside world ready to take it on. You are a problem solver.
The right side facing out = Expanding your horizons beyond your close circle.
Directly facing at the door = Being in charge, yet balanced and adaptable
The left side facing out = Open to connections within your organization.
Who Should Face East?
The flexible office is good because individuals prefer specific directions; natural sales people work best facing east and philosophers like facing north. By allowing for directional differences you promote individual genius. That’s why we developed these guidelines.
Work spaces are oriented in dominant directions based on the main entrance. Traditionally bosses faced so they could see who was coming in the door. Symbolically the boss is in alignment with the company’s mission. With the boss on the 20th floor they don’t see who is coming in, but facing that same cardinal direction keeps them in philosophical alignment! Using traditional methods makes us feel safe and confident.
Because of personal programming some people benefit from the work space’s orientation more than others. We say they are a good fit with the company. Their personality type describes what that direction signifies. Stable, dependable workers like to face south, so when you put them in a southern aligned work space of course they feel supported by their surroundings.
Before wide spread electric lighting people had a more prevalent experience of sunlight and the night sky, the phases of the Moon and the constellations. They decided the timing of important activities and were illumination and guide posts for night time journeys along unlit pathways.
Recall that primordial sense of the cardinal directions when you plot the route that you want your business to travel. When have your whole crew facing the same direction they are navigating by the same stars. What direction would that be?
Television Sets tell it All
Television marketing messages appeal to emotions. People buy for emotional reasons and justify it later intellectually. Watch a TV commercial depicting any work place and look carefully at the set and you’ll notice that there is nothing random in their choices. When Ditech wanted to express ‘ no hidden fees in their loans’ they showed the woman answering your call in a transparent cubicle; no secrets there.
Mercury Insurance depicted offices with ridiculously low ceilings, desks and doorways with hunched over workers ‘inspired’ to lower prices. It was thoroughly silly but got your attention and delivered the message. The ‘doctor’ selling you drugs sits in an office set, the older the product’s target demographic, the more conservative the furniture.
Set designers know viewers are easy to pitch to because they know the visual language of TV which is similar but neater than life, reality has more random factors. That profusion of ‘doctor’ shows have transformed medical offices everywhere until they all look like TV sets. When you walk into a business or work space you read it the same way that you read a commercial, or situation comedy, or crime drama. Keep that in mind when you design your space and use that to your benefit.
Call 707-235-2648 for Tours, Books & Seminars Copyright Ralph & Lahni de Amicis 2011 All tasting fees, hours, wine lists, etc are subject to change.