Fifty meters apart, conversations stop

Series「People Don't Follow the Org Chart」 · Part 4 of 13 · Part 2 · How structure shapes behavior
Prologue：The people who aren't on the org chart

A Japan entity moves to a new office. Sales on the third floor, engineering on the fifth, an elevator in between. The org chart doesn't change. Reporting lines don't change. Three months later sales complains that engineering doesn't respond, and engineering complains that sales makes promises. Each side thinks the other changed. Only the floor did.

A curve from 1977

In the 1970s Thomas Allen at MIT studied how engineers share technical information. He measured how often people talked against how far apart they sat, and got a steep downward curve. Within 10 meters the probability of weekly contact is high. By around 30 meters it has fallen by more than half. Past about 50 meters the curve flattens, and contact is no more likely than if the two people worked in another building, or another city.

The curve has been confirmed many times since. The surprise was that phone, email and chat did not flatten it. Allen's own 2007 follow-up found that people who sat close talked face to face more, and they also phoned and emailed each other more. Sitting close doesn't just favor one channel. It makes people willing to communicate at all.

Where people disagree is remote work. Some studies find that fully remote teams can compensate with communication rhythms designed on purpose. Others find that after going remote, weak ties across teams fall sharply while strong ties within teams get stronger. My reading is that the curve still holds. What counts as "50 meters" has changed, from physical distance to the effort it takes to start a conversation on purpose.

Same org chart, but put a pair 50 meters apart and their conversations stop

The shape of the Allen curve (Thomas Allen, MIT, 1977) as described in this article; a schematic, not measured values. Below: where the Japan entity in this article seats people

The Japan entity　where people sit now

• Sales and engineeringThird floor and fifth. Only the floor changed
  50 m+
• Island desksSeated by department, head at the end
  between places
• HybridEach department picks its own days
  all 50 m+
• Same teamHeld by reporting lines and weekly meetings
  a few m

The seating plan is part of the org chart, not a facilities job. Decide first who sits within 10 meters of whom.

The seating plan is an org chart

Most companies treat office layout as a facilities job and seat people by department. That moves the teams who already talk plenty even closer, and pushes the cross-department pairs who talk too little past 50 meters. The seating plan quietly cuts the collaboration lines drawn on the org chart.

Japanese offices add one more feature. Desks form islands by department, with the department head at the end of the island. That layout marks the boundary of the place very clearly. Communication up and down the island is smooth. Communication between islands is close to zero.

Decide who sits within 10 meters first

I treat the seating plan as part of organizational design, and draw it at the same time as the org chart.

First, list the two or three pairs of roles that will need to talk most over the next six months but sit in different boxes on the chart. Enterprise sales and solutions engineers, say, or support and product. Then put those pairs within 10 meters, even if it means splitting a department's island. Don't worry about communication inside a department. Reporting lines and weekly meetings carry it, and a few extra meters won't break it.

For hybrid teams the same idea applies to office days. The pairs that need frequent contact have to be in on the same days. If each department picks its own office days, every cross-department pair ends up past 50 meters.

Choosing an office works the same way. A two-floor office has one more 50-meter wall than a single open floor, and the rent you save rarely covers what that wall costs.

Ask for the seating chart

The context layer of my organizational diagnosis looks at the combination of person and environment. Physical distance is the item people overlook most, and the easiest one to change. In a diagnosis I take the seating plan, mark the people who sit on the three decision chains, and see how far apart they are. The next post looks at the other side of this. Communication structure gets copied into the product.

The two teams in your company that most need to work together: how many meters apart are they right now?

In this series
Previous：The favor ledger is more honest than the org chart
Next：Conway's law: draw the team before the product