Choosing the Right Boardroom Table for Your Office.
If there is a particular piece of furniture that is going to be a testament to the decisions that a company is going to make, then it has to be the boardroom table. This is a table that will witness bright ideas and dumb ideas jostling for the attention of the company. This is a table that will witness the growth of the company, and the making of Kings and Queens who will lead the company.
As such, choosing the right table for the kind of business you want to do is crucial for the kind of message you want to send.
For the Modern Tech Oriented Company
The internet has truly become the information superhighway that it was touted to be. As such, it has greatly affected how business is conducted in the 21st Century. Ideas are communicated much faster, and changes take place immediately.
Many a tech company has grown over the last two decades, and many more are coming up. The changes experienced in these last two decades should have a reflection on the boardroom you are building. No longer are meetings held in walled off and artificially lit rooms, natural light has been the way to go.
A white table with splayed metal legs is a great indicator of the times we are living in. This post-modern design will greatly fit in a glass walled board room, or the concrete grey undertones of the wall around the room.
For the Company with Traditional Corporate Outlook.
You have been in operation for decades now, or you are the kind of person who has gathered enough experience from an industry you have been working in, and want to set up your own company. What you don’t want is to change the aesthetic that has been working for you all these years. You simply want to update the rooms.
You want your boardroom to convey that you are grounded in what you do. You are fully aware of your identity, and you have been fully immersed in it for however many years you have been in operation.
For this, you want to go with a traditional hardwood table. Hardwood is a symbol of longevity and strength. Now add in some oval corners around the table, and the quintessential black office chair, and you will have set yourself up a powerful boardroom.
The chairs, though, should be comfortable. This would communicate that even though you have a backbone and you are sure of what you are doing, you are comfortable with having some comfort around your workplace.
For the family-oriented businesses.
Whenever one thinks of a corporate workplace, the only things that come to mind immediately are the soul crushing nature of the office. The stiff competition, the undercutting, the cutthroat nature of colleagues, if you can call them that, all in an effort to survive in the workplace.
Not every company encourages such an environment. In fact, a family-oriented business will completely eschew such cut throat competition at the workplace. As such, the people there tend to be more relaxed, and alive to the fact that they will be treated more humanely, and not just as an employee number.
A business with human centered values would know that aesthetics speak a great deal on the kind of people that they are. This goes for the kind of board room table that you have. Think about it, where does a family meet to share their ideas and brainstorm on the way forward?
A dining table.
This doesn’t mean you put a literal dining table in your board room, it just means the kind of table you put in there should communicate a homeliness, comfort and ease that can be found around the dining table. This can be a wooden table with rounded corners painted in a light brown color.
For the business with a modern outlook.
The world is not static. It doesn’t always mean the people will want to change with the changing times. This actually is a problem with many companies simply refusing to look towards the future. But that is not you, you anticipate what the future may contend for your company, and you are not afraid to roll with the punches.
You may be any kind of company, and you can cater to different types of demographics. However, the outlook you put out in your board room should be indicative of the kind of outlook you want for your company. In this case, you are not afraid to show it.
For your kind of outlook, you want a table that has straight wood grain in various colors, they form stripes from edge to edge. This would be an indicator that you realize things will not always be smooth, but whatever comes your way, you are able to take it on and keep moving in the direction of your choosing.
For the Business That’s Sets Aside the Rules of The Past
It’s not every company that’s out there to get busy crunching numbers and looking at metric on PowerPoint presentations. Some companies wee born out of passion. Some were even born to spite rules of the past, and are therefore looking to set their own standards and culture.
You want to build a work culture that’s different from other companies. You don’t want to isolate people into little cubicles where they can’t share their ideas. You want them to sit in an open space where they are free to share ideas.
You have a variety of options available to you. You can pick a small table with comfortable seats. This will put the employees in close proximity to each other, allowing for greater collaboration.
You could also have it be a wide enough table that allows greater room in between the people, but still be close enough for people to speak and be heard down the table. This would be especially important if you have learned to harness the power of introverts.