{"id":23508,"date":"2026-10-09T11:40:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T18:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.withbureau.com\/?p=23508"},"modified":"2026-10-09T12:10:49","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T19:10:49","slug":"design-office-like-college-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/eu\/blog\/deskside\/design-office-like-college-campus\/","title":{"rendered":"Design Your Office Like a College Campus: Ron Friedman on Where Great Teamwork Really Happens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In July, we wrote about Ron Friedman&#8217;s Harvard Business Review research on <a href=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/blog\/deskside-us\/office-amenity-high-performing-teams\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/blog\/deskside-us\/office-amenity-high-performing-teams\/\">the office amenity high-performing teams actually need<\/a>: a quiet place to do focused work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ron recently joined us on the Spaces by Bureau podcast to go deeper into his latest book, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.simonandschuster.com\/books\/Superteams\/Ron-Friedman\/9781982186333\">Super Teams<\/a><\/em>, and his first, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/314226\/the-best-place-to-work-by-ron-friedman-phd\/9780399165603\/\">The Best Place to Work<\/a><\/em>. One idea ran through the whole conversation. Great teamwork happens when people think on their own first, then come together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"x-resp-embed x-is-video x-is-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Collaboration Trap\" width=\"1320\" height=\"743\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7EdBqO30KVo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How ABBA wrote hits without writing them together<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ron grew up on his grandparents&#8217; ABBA records. In <em>Super Teams<\/em>, he breaks down how the band wrote its songs, and it wasn&#8217;t four people in one room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Benny and Bj\u00f6rn each wrote musical pieces on their own, then came together to combine them into a full song. Bj\u00f6rn wrote the lyrics at home, session players added embellishments, and the singers adjusted the words last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Everybody contributed, but they didn&#8217;t all contribute at the same time,&#8221; Ron said. It&#8217;s the same principle behind brainwriting, which we covered in <a href=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/blog\/deskside-us\/office-amenity-high-performing-teams\/\">our post on his HBR research<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The collaboration trap<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ron has worked at two successful companies that ran in opposite ways. The first was a cutthroat political consulting firm. The second was a marketing agency built around collaboration: constant team building, doors kept open, and at least 10 people in every meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It felt healthy, but it shows a common trap: assuming more collaboration is always better. &#8220;A lot of leaders think they want more collaboration, but what they get instead is constant togetherness,&#8221; Ron said. &#8220;And constant togetherness is burning us out and it&#8217;s not leading to better results.&#8221; With email and Slack on all day, that togetherness follows people back to their desks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Design your office like a college campus<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In <em>The Best Place to Work<\/em>, Ron argues the office should work like a college campus. &#8220;That&#8217;s exactly what we need in a multi-use office if we want people to really operate at their best,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-fixed-layout\"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Campus space<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>What it gives students<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>What it looks like at work<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><tr><td>The dorm room or library<\/td><td>Privacy<\/td><td>Quiet, enclosed space for focused work<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>The quad<\/td><td>Communal space to collaborate<\/td><td><br>Shared areas and meeting rooms<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><br>Places that inspire<\/td><td><br>Somewhere to go for new ideas<\/td><td><br>Spaces that let the mind wander<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most offices are good at the quad. The library is usually what&#8217;s missing, and Ron&#8217;s research found it&#8217;s the amenity most tied to team performance. &#8220;Now I recognize we&#8217;re on Bureau&#8217;s podcast. I am not a paid spokesman,&#8221; he told us. &#8220;The science tells us if you want a collaborative team that works effectively and is high performing, you need to create the opportunities for them to collaborate privately as well as a unit.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Bureau read<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is where booths come in. A library doesn&#8217;t have to mean a renovation. A <a href=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/products\/tuesday\/\">1-person booth like Tuesday<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/products\/one\/\">One Focus<\/a> gives people a quiet place to think on the office floor. Booths for two to six people, like <a href=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/products\/quad\/\">Quad Meet<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/products\/team\/\">Team Meet<\/a>, make room for the small, focused conversations that don&#8217;t need a full meeting room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/shop\/\">Give your team a quiet place to work<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why productivity hacks don&#8217;t fix a team<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Turning off notifications or checking email three times a day can make an individual more productive. Ron found it doesn&#8217;t make the team more productive. &#8220;One person&#8217;s deep work becomes another person&#8217;s bottleneck,&#8221; he said. If he stops checking email from 12 to 4, anyone waiting on his reply is stuck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Interruptions also cost more than they seem. Psychologists call it attention residue: every time you switch tasks, part of your attention stays on the last one. Send one quick text, see five more waiting, and by the time you&#8217;ve answered them you&#8217;ve forgotten what you were doing. Ron&#8217;s tip is to keep a notepad nearby, jot down the distraction, and get back to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But he&#8217;s clear that discipline alone won&#8217;t fix it. &#8220;You can&#8217;t be a high performer on a low performing team,&#8221; he said. The fix has to happen at the team level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What super teams do instead<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The best teams in Ron&#8217;s research are deliberate about how they spend their week. Here&#8217;s what he shared with us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Meeting guidelines.<\/strong> Ron&#8217;s team uses &#8220;no decision, no meeting.&#8221; Percolate has a &#8220;no spectators&#8221; rule. The Obama White House defaulted to 15-minute meetings, with more time needing the leader&#8217;s approval. If a meeting feels like a waste of time, Ron says, that&#8217;s a sign your team needs a guideline.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Shared focus blocks.<\/strong> The whole team agrees on a window, like 2:30 to 4 on Tuesday, with no email and no meetings.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Meeting-free days.<\/strong> Ron cites research showing teams with two meeting-free days a week saw productivity rise by over 70%, with half the stress.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Planned time together.<\/strong> Let people choose where they work, but hold strategic discussions on set days, with pre-reads shared in advance so everyone shows up ready.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ron&#8217;s advice is to start small. Try 30 to 90 minutes without email next week, then talk about whether it worked. &#8220;This is how super teams get better,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They&#8217;re constantly experimenting.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Where Ron does his best thinking<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When we asked where he goes to do his best thinking, Ron&#8217;s answer was the pool. He keeps a list of problems he hasn&#8217;t solved and goes swimming. Pairing a thinking task with a physical one, he explained, frees the mind to think in less linear ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s the campus idea in miniature: a place to think alone, a place to come together, and room for the mind to wander. Most offices already have the second. The question is whether yours makes room for the other two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">FAQ:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"schema-faq wp-block-yoast-faq-block\"><div class=\"schema-faq-section\" id=\"faq-question-1789640692201\"><strong class=\"schema-faq-question\"><strong>Who is Ron Friedman?<\/strong><\/strong> <p class=\"schema-faq-answer\">\u00a0Ron Friedman is an award-winning social psychologist and the best-selling author of <em>The Best Place to Work<\/em> and <em>Super Teams<\/em>. His research on building high-performing teams has been featured in the New York Times, Bloomberg, and Harvard Business Review.<\/p> <\/div> <div class=\"schema-faq-section\" id=\"faq-question-1789640692202\"><strong class=\"schema-faq-question\"><strong>What is a super team?<\/strong><\/strong> <p class=\"schema-faq-answer\">In Ron&#8217;s research, super teams are the roughly 8% of teams that gave themselves a perfect score on how well they achieve their goals and how they compare to other teams in their industry. They share three traits: they manage time, energy, and attention well, they actively make one another better, and they keep looking to improve.<\/p> <\/div> <div class=\"schema-faq-section\" id=\"faq-question-1789640692203\"><strong class=\"schema-faq-question\"><strong>What office amenity matters most for team performance?<\/strong><\/strong> <p class=\"schema-faq-answer\">A quiet space for focused work. Ron&#8217;s research found it was the amenity most tied to high-performing teams, ahead of gyms and collaborative spaces. We cover the full findings in <a href=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/blog\/deskside-us\/office-amenity-high-performing-teams\/\">our post on his HBR research<\/a>.<\/p> <\/div> <div class=\"schema-faq-section\" id=\"faq-question-1789640692204\"><strong class=\"schema-faq-question\"><strong>What does it mean to design an office like a college campus?<\/strong><\/strong> <p class=\"schema-faq-answer\">\u00a0It&#8217;s an idea from <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/314226\/the-best-place-to-work-by-ron-friedman-phd\/9780399165603\/\">The Best Place to Work<\/a><\/em>. A campus gives students a dorm room or library for privacy, a quad for collaboration, and places to go for inspiration. Ron argues a multi-use office needs the same mix.<\/p> <\/div> <div class=\"schema-faq-section\" id=\"faq-question-1789640692205\"><strong class=\"schema-faq-question\"><strong>What is the collaboration trap?<\/strong><\/strong> <p class=\"schema-faq-answer\">\u00a0It&#8217;s the assumption that more collaboration is always better. Ron says many leaders who want more collaboration end up with constant togetherness instead, which leads to burnout without better results.<\/p> <\/div> <div class=\"schema-faq-section\" id=\"faq-question-1791569202303\"><strong class=\"schema-faq-question\"><strong>What is attention residue?<\/strong><\/strong> <p class=\"schema-faq-answer\">Attention residue is what psychologists call the part of your attention that stays on your last task after you switch. The more often you switch, the less focus you bring to the next thing.<\/p> <\/div> <\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Keep going<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/7EdBqO30KVo?si=L17GG9khnjWCIAP3\">Watch the full interview<\/a><\/strong> with Ron Friedman, or listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Read the research<\/strong> in <a href=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/blog\/deskside-us\/office-amenity-high-performing-teams\/\">our post on Ron&#8217;s HBR findings<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Learn more about Ron&#8217;s work<\/strong> at <a href=\"https:\/\/superteamsinc.com\/\">superteamsinc.com<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/ronfriedmanphd.com\/\">ronfriedmanphd.com<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-8f761849 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"467\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/RF-Best-Place-to-Work.avif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-23511\" srcset=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/RF-Best-Place-to-Work.avif 467w, https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/RF-Best-Place-to-Work-200x300.avif 200w, https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/RF-Best-Place-to-Work-60x90.avif 60w, https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/RF-Best-Place-to-Work-320x480.avif 320w, https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/RF-Best-Place-to-Work-100x150.avif 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 467px) 100vw, 467px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"675\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/superteams-9781982186333_hr-675x1024.avif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-23517\" srcset=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/superteams-9781982186333_hr-675x1024.avif 675w, https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/superteams-9781982186333_hr-198x300.avif 198w, https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/superteams-9781982186333_hr-768x1166.avif 768w, https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/superteams-9781982186333_hr-1012x1536.avif 1012w, https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/superteams-9781982186333_hr-1349x2048.avif 1349w, https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/superteams-9781982186333_hr-60x91.avif 60w, https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/superteams-9781982186333_hr-320x486.avif 320w, https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/superteams-9781982186333_hr-600x911.avif 600w, https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/superteams-9781982186333_hr-100x152.avif 100w, https:\/\/withbureau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/superteams-9781982186333_hr.avif 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/shop\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/withbureau.com\/shop\/\">Give your team a quiet place to work<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ron Friedman joins the Spaces by Bureau podcast to explain why the best teams think alone first, then come together, and what that means for office design.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":23547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[489,576],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-deskside","category-new"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Design Your Office Like a College Campus: Ron Friedman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Psychologist Ron Friedman on why great teamwork needs quiet time first, from ABBA&#039;s songwriting to designing your office like a college campus.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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