The work setting in the office is not permissive for one to concentrate and produce concrete work. The nature of the office gives individuals fragments of time that limit their ability to do meaningful things. Fried (2010) argued that people such as engineers and thinkers would require long hours of uninterrupted time that is not available at the office. The distractions of the office are unique because they are involuntary. Fried noted that despite people thinking that social media distracts workers at the office, managers are the main distractors. For instance, the managers tend to keep on asking the employees for progress reports repetitively wasting a lot of time. On top of that, the managers call for meetings that waste a lot of productive work hours. Fried suggests that managers may need to consider the introduction of “no talk days” to increase productivity. Further, they may also avoid face to face communications and use emails that do not have a lot of disruptions.
I believe that Fried’s ideas are right in that managers and other people in the hierarchy of leadership tend to waste a lot of time in consultations. For instance, the manager may not always keep asking for progress reports by way of physical presence but may do so through emails. Besides, I think the presence of managers all the time may instil unnecessary fear in the employees and make them less productive. If the culture of the office emphasizes on supervision, the workers would lack intrinsic motivation, and consequently be less productive.
I can apply the ideas to work by reducing the number of meetings to only when necessary. On top of that, I can implement "no talk mornings and afternoons" in the days when the work is overwhelming.
Reference
Fried J. (2010). Why work doesn’t happen at work. TED show. Retrieve don January 30, 2016 from http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work
