More sights, smells and feels at work

Over the issues we’ve published we’ve talked several times about home office design, for example here,  and all the things that we’ve told you about colour, scents, etc., and your performance and wellbeing in your home office are also true when you’re working outside your house, brains are brains.  For example:

• Seeing the colour red (even a little bit very briefly) degrades our analytical performance and looking at greens helps us think more creatively. Red does give us a burst of strength so it’s the best colour for the wall behind the boxes of copy machine paper.
• When we see someone with a warm coloured wall behind them, we think they’re friendlier, and since at-work bonding is important for performance using warm colours like peaches in break areas can be a good investment, and when we’re in a cooler coloured place we feel more powerful (and it generally seems like feeling powerful as you work is a good idea).
• Visual clutter gives our minds so much to ponder that we can become so stressed that our ability to do good work collapses—which is why so many workplaces are packed with cabinets that keep papers, pens, you-name-it out of sight.
• All of the people participating in any conversation need to be sitting in chairs with legs that are the same length or on cushions on the floor—when our heads are at different heights because some of us are seated on higher steps in stadium-type seating than others or because some of us are sitting in regular height chairs and others are sitting on bar stool height seats the people being looked up to are seen are “more-adult,” more powerful, competent, skilled etc., while the reverse is true for people who are literally being looked down on—none of which is good for the free and frank exchange of ideas.
• Smelling lemon boosts our cognitive performance and lavender encourages us to be more trusting (which can be good or bad at work), while when we’re in a space that smells clean to us we’re apt to be fairer and more generous.
• When we’re sitting in a chair with even a little bit of cushioning on its seat (an effect that can be created via an actual cushion or just the right sort of webbed surface) we don’t drive as hard a bargain during negotiations, get along more pleasantly with others, which can be particularly handy in many debates.