Seating arrangements play role in office politics

Could the position of your desk, or your employees' seating arrangements, be inhibiting you, or your staff, from achieving maximum productivity and profitability? Have you noticed a higher staff turnover among those who sit near the door? Could tensions between staff be caused by poor placement of desks rather than inherent personality clashes?

These questions are examined by Kirsten Lagatree in her new book, Feng Shui At Work: arranging your work space for peak performance and maxi- mum profit (Newleaf, Gill & Macmillan, 1998).

Feng shui is the Chinese "art of placement" and Ms Lagatree explains that it is increasingly being used in the West to enhance the health and wealth of business people and their enterprises.

She says the position of your desk "can make or break your place in the business world". Its placement is vital "whether you work in a corporate office or run a business from a corner of your living room". The golden rule on desk positioning is: "When seated behind your desk, you must always be able to see the door." If you don't face the door "you'll always be surprised by people entering your office"; "you may be the victim of back-stabbing and dangerous office politics"; and even the most easygoing person "can become paranoid in this situation".

So vital is this golden rule that, if you can't face the door, you should "hang a mirror over your desk to give you a `rear view' from your seat".

Ms Lagatree believes that when several desks are situated in the same room, the person seated furthest from the door, who can see as much of the room as possible, has the most commanding position: "What you cannot see, you cannot control. . . You should be able to see the area you work in with a quick glance. With this visual command you are more powerful because you're aware of your environment, quick to note any hint of change in the air, and quick to take action when necessary."

By the same token, the person seated near the door will feel uncomfortable and is likely to leave the company soon.

Employees' desks shouldn't face one another directly. Personality problems can be due to the "relationship" of their desks. Stagger them slightly and, if that's not possible, put a barrier perhaps a small green plant on the facing end of each desk.

She says that the best position of all is for your desk to be "diagonally across from the door with your back to a corner". This provides "the solid support of walls behind you. However pleasant and coveted windows are in a corporate setting, a window behind you means less backing for your ideas and authority".

Another key principle in feng shui desk management is: "Keep only one project at a time on your desk. File other folders and papers until you are working on those projects."

Size is significant: "The most important consideration in desk size is that each desk should represent the relative importance (or power) of each person in the organisation.

You may be thrilled to have a kingsized desk. But if your boss's is smaller than yours, the organisation's hierarchy will be out of balance and the entire business will suffer from this lack of proper proportion."

Ms Lagatree believes clutter inhibits "orderly thought", creativity and "robs you of energy and concentration". She agrees with organisational guru, Barbara Hemphill, who wrote in Taming the Paper Tiger: "A cluttered desk indicates a pattern of postponed decisions."

Ms Lagatree suggests that the best way to de-clutter a disorderly desk is to take a half an hour a day to wade through the mountain filing or discarding as much as you can.

Then deal with the "floor clutter", but again don't spend more than a half an hour doing it to prevent you from being overwhelmed by the task.

She recommends to keep on your desk only items which you use each day. Items used less often should go into your desk drawer.

Avoid using your desk to store supplies. For example, keep only a few pens there, while keeping the box of pens in a cabinet or credenza. Do not place things on your desk where they are hard to reach.

Ms Lagatree frowns upon L-shaped desks, which suggest "incompleteness" and an inauspicious cleaver shape which "can undercut your authority" and "cut you off from communication with colleagues or your boss". So long as you don't create a hazard, she says to correct this by filling in the missing corner with a plant or floor lamp.