Professor Philip Zimbardo carried out an interesting social psychology experiment years ago at Stanford University: he abandoned two identical cars, one in the Bronx (in a run-down area of New York) and the other in Palo Alto (an affluent area of California).
Professor Zimbardo is also famous for the Stanford prison experiment and the Lucifer Effect.
Within hours, the first car had been completely dismantled: everything from its tyres to its engine was stolen, while the car abandoned in Palo Alto remained intact.
So far, the results were fairly predictable.
But what happened when the researchers broke a window in the second car?
Incredibly, it soon met the same fate as the car in the Bronx!
This experiment was the first building block in defining the famous "broken windows theory" which emphasises how context influences behaviour!
Breaking a window and not repairing it is almost like giving someone else permission to vandalise, triggering a spiral of urban and social decay.
According to this theory, keeping environments tidy and tackling vandalism are fundamental to public administration.
But the idea can be extended to everyday behaviour: parking recklessly and without consideration for others, smoking where it is prohibited and jumping queues are small acts that create a favourable context for escalation to more serious criminal actions.
The theory applies equally to the workplace.
I recall a quote from the great Sergio Marchionne:
"I remember the first 60 days after I arrived at FIAT. On Saturdays and Sundays, I went to Mirafiori, alone, to look at the showers, the changing rooms, the canteen, the toilets.
I changed everything: how could I ask workers for a quality product while making them work in such a run-down factory?"
You do not need to know the broken windows theory to know that a welcoming, clean environment with proper facilities increases productivity and, more importantly, motivation.
An attractive workplace is a way of showing consideration for people and can set a positive virtuous circle in motion.
Fastweb's beautiful, bright offices overlooking Piazzale Olivetti and Prada
Here too, we need to be attentive and promptly fix small faults; otherwise, people's attention shifts towards them and they perceive a lack of interest from the company.
Perhaps today I could tidy up my remote-working space😉