Pattern #11
The Shared Table
The shared table is the core metaphor for how work is done. The table convenes the team.
Every corporation in the Fortune 500 has been undertaking some form of “digital transformation” for the past decade. It could be that 10% of them may even have some clear idea of what that means. (Sadly, we’re probably being generous.) Perhaps they are still trying to get ecommerce right (!); maybe they are trying to mobile-enable their workforce…again; undoubtedly, they continue to grapple with their digital marketing funnel and the complexities of an ever-elusive social media strategy. Truthfully, it isn’t easy—marrying legacy business processes to contemporary consumer behavior can be a real riddle, and one that requires some serious corporate soul-searching. When it comes to employee productivity, however, there is an easy breakthrough that shockingly few companies have adopted: true virtual document collaboration. Colloquially, this is known as Google Docs.
Unlike other workplace productivity suites (ahem, Microsoft), Google Docs is designed from the ground up as a place of true collaboration, a virtual space where co-workers can jointly author presentations, build documents side-by-side, examine and adjust spreadsheet variables in multiple cells simultaneously. “Version control” becomes a concept that is no longer relevant. “Backing up” is no longer necessary. Email attachments are moot. All in all, it’s a prime example of a pattern of work that we call “the shared table.” Only now, instead of “please pass the mashed potatoes,” it’s “can you make some edits on slides 10–20, while I work on the intro?” It is so powerful, so transformative and so easy. So what is holding these companies back? It’s no exaggeration to say they are stuck in the productivity dark ages. (And please don’t point to poor approximations like Microsoft 365 or shared document repositories like Box as viable alternatives. They simply aren’t.)
Most corporate gatekeepers (many of them Microsoft certified) will point to security concerns as the main hurdle, but based on what evidence? The current preponderance of ransomware attacks that are shutting down entire cities are born of security flaws in Microsoft software. Nevertheless, loosening Microsoft’s contractual grip on large enterprises has been no small challenge for Google; a challenge that is as much about brand perception as product security. And speaking of digital transformation, Microsoft seems incapable of getting out of its own way to launch a document collaboration solution that actually works.
In the end, however, it is a matter of adopting new behavior: being willing to sit at the shared table, to expose the messiness of the creative process, to accept a new level of input from your colleagues, to author as a team and not just as an individual. These are the real cultural requirements of digital transformation—and remain far too rare in the jungle of legacy corporate behaviors.
Now, excuse me while I share this doc with my co-author to see if he can make it better.