Take A Hike

Entrepreneur, July, 2000 by Chris Penttila

... or maybe just go outside for a while. Whatever you do, don't drag your staff into that old meeting room for even one more of the stuffy same ol'.

When Sally Crawford and one of her salespeople had a problem they couldn't solve, they decided to take it outside. Outside the office, that is. Crawford asked the employee to accompany her on a walk through the neighborhood in order to find a solution to the challenging business problem. In the end, they were able to come up with an answer. "We figured it out," she says. "We just needed a change of pace."

Crawford, 47, is CEO of Crawford & Associates International, a Palo Alto, California, creative-learning company with 25 employees. There's evidence that many employees would embrace her "change of pace" idea. In a poll jointly conducted by ABCNEWS.com and WorkingWounded.com, a Web site that offers advice and insight to help solve many of the problems that workplaces might have, employees were asked to describe what helps them brainstorm effectively. Roughly 48 percent of respondents to the survey said simply leaving the office--getting out of Dodge for a few hours--is the best way to start generating new ideas at work.

"A lot of meetings can fall into a learned helplessness, where the meeting is [always] at the same time in the same place, and that leads to boredom," says Gary Vikesland, a licensed psychologist and certified employee-assistance counselor in Bloomington, Minnesota. "Going to a different place can change the rhythm of a meeting and create better ideas."

CHANGE OF SCENERY

Working with the same people on routine tasks in the same setting constitutes 90 percent of most people's jobs. This creates a certain comfortable consistency. For most of us, going to the office in the morning means knowing where we're supposed to be and what we'll be working on.

That sense of comfort that's found in routine even applies to meetings. Most business owners always hold their staff meetings in the same room, and many employees even tend to gravitate toward the same chairs every time. This is our human nature at work, staking out our boundaries and finding our place in the scheme of things. At heart, we're all creatures of habit.

Familiarity, however, can breed ineptitude when work teams are seeking to come up with something new, says Frank McAndrew, a professor of social psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. The office setting, he says, reinforces the habitual ways in which we deal with our coworkers and problems. Most people tend to rely on old solutions, simply because it's easier. "The more you're in the same surroundings, the more you'll do this," McAndrew says. "People like familiarity because they don't have to process new information. But really, we're primed to our best when we're put in new places."

Giving employees a change of scenery--even something as simple as walking around the block--can help trigger new ideas, new enthusiasm and a boost in morale that will have at least short-term benefits for your organization. Studies have shown that today's employees place a high value on their ability to strategize in a job and want recognition for their ideas. In a 1999 Walker Information survey, employees listed "opportunities to contribute" as a major factor in building job satisfaction, but less than half those surveyed (47 percent) felt the companies they worked for were encouraging them to experiment with new ways of doing things.

Crawford says she tries to form a connection so her staff can see a link between the purpose of her business and everyday life in the office, and her employees have grown accustomed to her efforts to break out of the stale routine of traditional office meetings. "I'm consciously trying to create a culture where it's desirable to take things outside," she says. "I encourage my employees to take a walk to chat and share ideas."

Staff members often take half-hour breaks to visit a nearby toy store, where they can check out the assortment of toys while talking business strategy. Crawford and her employees also frequent the local food market to do the same thing. Crawford is sold on the idea that these kinds of activities increase the creativity of her and her employees. "Spending a small amount of time to change the environment creates a major payoff. It helps you take ideas to another level," she says. "It's a freebie I can give my employees. I can create something that doesn't cost anything, and it's important for employee retention, especially here in the Silicon Valley."

Vicki Whiting, an assistant professor at the Gore School of Business Management at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, says that getting away from the typical roundtable office meeting--for a cup of coffee, a walk or another refreshing activity--can remove many of the hierarchical barriers that surface in formal meetings. "If you have the leader leaning in one direction on an idea, subordinates will tend to follow if things are formal," Whiting says. "Offsite meetings make things more equal between employees and manager."