If your desk is moved into the corner, you're in trouble, my friend

It's tempting to see where you sit in an office as a trivial, bureaucratic accident. Real corporate warriors, however, know it is of enormous significance. It not only determines how you are perceived but what your opportunities may be in the future. Even in the most meritocratic organisations, such things matter.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the multi-billionaire founders of Google, still share an office, albeit one equipped with Astroturf carpeting and massage chairs. In the White House, President Obama placed his most trusted adviser, David Axelrod, in a tiny office which had the great advantage of being right next to the Oval Office. David Cameron and George Osborne can communicate effortlessly thanks to the doors linking No 10 and No 11 Downing Street, to the exclusion of the rest of the Cabinet if necessary.

Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, transplanted the open office layout from his eponymous financial news company to City Hall. Rather than occupying some grand corner office he sits in the middle of his "bullpen" of cubicles. But even in this seemingly free-wheeling setting, power radiates outward from his modest desk, with his closest aides all clustered nearby.

Bloomberg explained recently that "Office layout reflects an organisation's culture but, more and more, I think it will reflect the state of our economy. Are we going to open our doors to the best talent and ideas in a continual push for innovation? Or are we going to close our doors and rely on the That's the way it's always been done' approach? The global marketplace is moving so fast that, in five years, those who aren't pushing for openness are going to be increasingly pushed aside."

Openness alone, however, doesn't make for access. Proximity still matters. An important study of the way information and influence flows around a physical office space was conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Seventies by a professor called Tom Allen and is still closely read today. Allen studied how the distance between engineers' offices affected the sharing of technical information. His research produced the Allen Curve, which shows a strong connection between physical distance and frequency of communication. Any distance greater than 50 metres between engineers led to a dramatic drop in weekly communication. They might as well have been 50 miles away.

If they were within 50 metres of each other, they would talk on average seven times a week as they passed in the corridor, on their way to the bathroom or to lunch. More than 50 metres, and they would talk just once a month.

Even in the internet era, Allen has found his curve holds true. The probability of telephone communication, for example, falls rather than rises the less one sees someone face-to-face.
The same applies to all forms of communication. The more we see people in person, the more likely we are to communicate with them electronically. This is perhaps the greatest dilemma faced by those trying to develop their careers remotely. A video conference or instant message conversation can never substitute for the threads built by in-person office interactions. You risk becoming a virtual rather than a real person.

The Allen Curve has been used by numerous firms in the design of their office spaces, especially those where collaboration is vital. BMW's research and design centre in Munich was built on Allen's principles to enable engineers and designers to mingle effortlessly, in order to speed up and improve the iterative process of car design.

Tom Peters, the management expert and author of The Little Big Things, once studied a number of oil exploration companies and found that by far the most successful at finding oil did one thing that none of the others did. It put geologists and geophysicists in the same office. Peters writes: "Geologists love rocks and hate computer printouts; geophysicists love computer printouts and hate rocks. But now we put them in the same office."

The result was greatly improved collaboration and more oil discoveries. Many successful hedge funds have their top traders sitting in a cluster in the centre of a trading floor so that information can be shared and acted on immediately. Even the quickest form of electronic communication cannot replace the reactive whisper or shout across the room.

If you are in the business of selling ideas, at an advertising or media firm, for example, your success will hinge greatly on your ability to build trust with your bosses. It will help immensely if your face is familiar.

In Japan, out-of-favour workers are dispatched to the dreaded corner desk by the window, where they will live out their lifetime employment shunned by the rest of the firm. It is acknowledgement of the fact that where you sit matters. If you are in the thick of the action, chances are your performance will be watched and you will receive better and better opportunities. Sit on the periphery and your reputation as an outsider will harden until it is impossible to break.

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