The Politics of Occupants’ Feedback: Issues in Implementation

Abstract

In previous chapters, opportunities for feedback from occupants about their workspace have been explored in order to demonstrate that companies can make better use of their real estate and space costs through creating a better fit between the tasks people do at work and the physical environment in which they carry the tasks out. It has also been possible to outline, in some detail, a system for acquiring and using feedback from building users in order to make the kinds of changes necessary to improve work effectiveness and productivity. Acknowledging the rationality of this argument and the sophistication of BIU Assessment as an approach, still, every company has norms, attitudes, values, and ways of doing things that create a highly political environment in which to carry out this sort of activity. Therefore, good sense and rationality alone will not guarantee the success of a BIU-type intervention: understanding the politics of the organization is necessary in order to make it work.

“[Frank Lloyd] Wright was a master of strategic work. He correctly understood the important social—spatial issues at stake. He understood that they would be decided by the voters.”.

Glen Robert Lym, A Psychology of Building