What Desire Paths can teach us about returning to the office.
A thread worth reading on Twitter about “Desire Paths”
This thread includes reference to a how Michigan State university chose to left their green spaces unpaved, allowing people to choose where to walk and wear out the grass into “desire paths” and only then paving those paths, the University of Wisconsin chose a (cough, pun!) middle ground:
UW’s assistant campus planner Aaron Williams said the UW approaches the layout of the campus’ pathways through holistic, contextual planning. “We try to get it right the first time,” Williams said. “There’s a fine balance between paving the entire campus and having green space.”
Desire paths: the unofficial footpaths that frustrate, captivate campus planners
So, I’m thinking about what desire paths can teach us about returning to the office.
Almost every business leader I talk to anywhere in the world is considering this and my daily posts have written (often) over the last year on what I’ve learned from listening to their thoughts and views.
In short, I like the image and idea of desire paths to help us consider this, as well as those thoughts from Aaron Williams of UW.
From this, I encourage leaders to have the vision and sense of what the business needs and try to get it right the first time, and at the same time have the humility and open-ness to the fact that you don’t have all the answers, that your people will walk different paths, including those you haven’t “paved” for them, plus humans are irrational, complex, unsolvable. We don’t act in predictable ways, particularly around emotive topics such as public transport after a pandemic (to name but one).
There is indeed a fine balance to strike here on the journey to “going back to better”, to take what we had before, what we have learned and are learning, then to move forward and pave paths old and new.