Show Producer’s Blog: Newsroom Hubbub

Susan Cain’s New York Times op-ed “The Rise of the New Groupthink” makes me think a lot about the way we work here at The World. We have an open plan newsroom where only a couple of managers have offices with doors on them. The rest of us are cheek by jowl in curved rows of desks separated by low partitions over which you can just see people’s heads. No privacy, no quiet, but lots of room and opportunity for chitchat, interruption, waving at people you need to talk to who are under their headphones, and yes, collaboration. (If you haven’t seen it, check out this fun video of a day in the life of our broadcast.)

Mostly the open floor plan is incredibly useful – everyone involved in our daily broadcast and web operations needs to communicate almost constantly and much of it can be done easily because we’re close together and not cut off by doors and cubicle walls. But as many of us would attest, the continual interruptions are also wearing, and those who want to concentrate on longer-term projects have migrated to the back of the room, furthest from the hubbub of the daily production fray. Just this week a colleague asked whether I minded if he moved desks so he could sit in a more remote part of the room. He said he was tired of being right next to the studio with the door opening and closing and continual foot traffic and conversations right over his shoulder. I had nothing but sympathy for his plight and heartily endorsed the idea.

Susan Cain’s piece suggests that many creative types are introverts who crave solitude and work best alone. Many of us I suspect are somewhere along the middle of the spectrum, thriving on contact but needing quiet as well. My dream has long been to have an office with a door on it where I can read and write whatever I want. In reality my career has unfolded in newsroom environments, where work is performed in the midst of white noise, machines, constant contact with colleagues and frenetic daily deadlines. Perhaps that’s why it’s such a relief to go on a reporting trip and be lost in my own thoughts for long stretches of travel. Not to mention actually doing the real on-the-ground reporting that is the lifeblood of what we do at The World.

But having said that, what if I were suddenly presented with that quiet office; would I find it as productive as I like to think it would be? Or is it precisely the intensity and discipline and stimulation of the newsroom environment that has kept me churning out radio all these years? Cain’s piece doesn’t really address the question of motivation and how it’s affected by the proximity or not of colleagues. Surely there’s a mixture of peer pressure and peer support that many of us rely on to keep the daily juices flowing. I’m sure creative geniuses have no trouble generating material in solitude, but what about the rest of us?!

I’d love to know your thoughts—how you work best, what the architecture of your workplace is like, whether you think Susan Cain is right about the dangers of the New Groupthink. Perhaps, as she suggests, even in a newsroom like ours, we should be creating places where people can get some quiet and solitude on a regular basis to see if it induces a different kind or quality of work. I can’t help thinking this particular dilemma of solitude vs. physical proximity mirrors the dilemma of how much time to spend reading and writing vs. clicking on videos or tweeting. It’s all about how much interaction is optimal in a creative, intellectual life. And I suspect the answer is very different depending on who you are. Which means only some of you will feel like leaving a comment below!