The Power Of Walking The Grass: Design Systems Around How Work Happens

What prompts us to move from a rigid, structured journey and on to something powerfully new? Something with flow.​

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I was like the other students on the college campus, walking the quadrangle each day.

The quad was an open courtyard of geometrically laid-out sidewalks: right angles and diagonals that were artistically appealing when viewed from the air. But as someone who had to walk the quad on the ground level, it was not really accommodating when I wanted to go to a certain building and had to walk an awkward series of angles to get to it.

One thing that was appealing during my daily walk was a brand new building being constructed just down the hill where I would be taking classes in the spring. Watching the construction progress each day as I passed by was energizing. The irresistible pull of the upcoming, the new, was exciting.​

The opening of the new classrooms and lecture hall was exciting. It was a beautiful building: bright light, clean, modernistically austere. Except for what I thought at the time was some poor planning: There was grass literally up to the sides of the building. The architects had forgotten to plan for sidewalks.

The consequences weren’t pretty. All of us, every day, made our own path to the building and tracked mud and grass onto the beautiful marble floors and into the elevators. This went on for several weeks.​

The Prompt​

I don’t know whether it was in the original plan, but the lesson holds either way. In week three, the architects came in and poured wide concrete walkways onto the organically curving paths that had formed in the beaten-down grass from our foot traffic.

Our walking in the grass had created something wonderful. Coming off the quad and onto the new, naturally flowing sidewalks that took us down to the new building was amazing. Form and structure suddenly matched function. The new sidewalks worked with us. It was beautiful ... The new sidewalks had flow.

Just like the new building with the tracked-in mud and grass onto the beautiful marble floors, the process can seem messy at first. However, designing flow and taking on the "strain," when done correctly, so often provides us with amazing results.​

Architects Of Change​

Leaders can be architects of change as they find out how people work before designing systems around them.

Connect with and include the people who do the work every day (walk in the grass). Ask them how tech/AI or other change might make things more efficient.

Best processes are not necessarily the ones leaders imagine from the top down. Leaders rarely get the path exactly right from a conference room. The real insight comes from watching how people move through their work.

Before building a system, watch the path. Teams often reveal the right path through behavior before they can explain it in a meeting.​

AI And Technology Adoption

Why run the risk of imposing tools before understanding real workflows?

Ask the people doing the daily work where the friction is before deciding where AI belongs. Build from what people are already doing.

What are the “paths through the grass” inside your business? Repeated workarounds? Shadow systems? Informal handoffs? Manual steps people quietly use because the official process does not work? When leaders see patterns, how should they respond?

Scenarios And Planning

Are you building too soon?

Before leaders pour the workflow concrete, scenarios offer an exception way of exploring multiple possible paths. Grass paths are low-cost experiments; sidewalks are commitments. Walk in the grass before locking in structure, technology, roles or processes.

The Benefits Of Messiness

There is real and lasting value in doing this work before redesigning a process, implementing technology or rolling out AI.

Getting messy reveals needs, obstacles and efficiencies. You make better decisions about where to invest, what to change and what not to solidify too early. Ensuring your changes reflect work processes enhances adoption.

Walking The Grass

Change efforts can fail when leaders build “sidewalks” before understanding where people naturally need to go. Embrace the power of walking in the grass.​

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Originally published at Forbes Coaches Council.