On office moves

In today's Wall Street Journal, a reporter talks about the discomfort of moving to a new office building. "A move can really shake up an office’s social structure," writes Elizabeth Bernstein. "It rearranges the company’s informal pecking order."

In a facilities move, that's often the point. Companies use their facilities strategically to change corporate culture or speed up response time. The smart ones are intentional about adjacencies, sometimes placing departments that intensely dislike each other together to improve communication. Research shows that people will turn to those closest to them to get non-critical information, which is why changing up adjacencies is effective. The folks who still feel uncomfortable sitting next to different colleagues at the WSJ could take a page from my friend Lois's book: Bring food and share it. Works every time.