THE INTENSIFICATION OF WORKPLACES: FROM TEMPORALITIES OF THE STAGE TO THE PLATEAU

Abstract

Historically or more metaphysically, the spatial and temporal unity of modes of organization is today widely questioned. Digitization, the pandemic, the climate crisis, a more decentralized management, or even multiple geopolitical ruptures have radically transformed the space-time of work and its organization. By entering into the vocabulary and logic of theater, this essay proposes to describe both a shift and a generative tension between the stage and the room, then the stage and the plateau. If the stage is a place in the most usual sense, a well-defined and closed site in the larger space of the world, the plateau is entirely events captured over the same time period and producers of ephemeral places according to their own topology. Given that they are more decentered, event-driven, and in-depth issues than ever, places of management must today be intensified, multiplied, and talked about. Managed like plateaus, they are now approached as experiments. It is up to “spect-actor” managers to actively build co-presences or intensities that can place their teams in common places that are often transitory. In a context of the generalization of remote working, these intensifications of places are more necessary than ever.