Not that he always chose it. When GHK proposed a coat of glaring tungsten blue paint for the kitchen area and break room -- where Mainline's minions can flop into overstuffed chairs and chill in front of the big-screen TV or the gas-fueled fireplace -- Kearney toned it down to a "more Old South, normal blue." But he did go along with many of the firm's recommendations: shrinking the library (so much research is now done online); relocating the coffee bar (why risk spillage around the work area?); and splintering the central copier room into multiple smaller locations (it cuts down on waiting time).
He consistently pushed for unusual alternatives. For the grounds' drainage system, he couldn't abide the typical eyesore of storm-water ponds that, he says, "end up looking like moon craters" when they're empty (and, for that matter, breed mosquitoes when they're full). Summit East has one big pond engineered to handle the runoff and storage of water. "It'll be one of the finest ponds in Tallahassee and certainly the most expensive," notes Kearney, who spent about $60,000 to prove to state regulators that it could handle all the water. He wanted all of Summit East's landscaping to convey "human-centric" comforts, grandiose yet practical: from the wide two-lane entrance and two-lane exit, lined with two-inch-caliper trees, to the illuminated wall-of-water fountain, to the roads cushioned by an extra-thick two-inch layer of asphalt.
Nonetheless, "this isn't an open wallet," says Dozier. "This has been tightly controlled, and people have been reined in." In March 1999 Dozier realized that not only were his fears about costs justified -- what with "pretty sporty" masonry and the underestimation of expenses associated with packing down the soil and procuring the steel needed to fortify the glass-heavy structure -- but the situation was worse than he had imagined. The projections for the Mainline building were over budget by a staggering $1 million.
Getting the word, Kearney managed to stay optimistic. "We had plans for a building," he says. "Just not one we could afford."
Kearney consistently pushed for unusual alternatives at Summit East.
The task, as Dozier defined it, sounded straightforward enough. "We had to cut costs without cutting into the heart and soul of the building," he says.
That presumed that Summit East's mastermind knew which aspects of Mainline's building were expendable and which were most crucial to achieving his oft-repeated goal: halting the unacceptable turnover rate among employees, whose ranks had swelled so swiftly that workers bulged from three separate buildings. As he rethought Summit East -- never mind when he'd originally conceived the project -- Kearney must have felt confident that he knew the answer to management's most ancient yet urgent query: What do employees really want?
As a matter of fact, he did -- feel confident, that is. But the reasons he gives now for having championed key features, insofar as he's able to recall them, can feel as squishy as the ground around the new structure still can. Go anywhere in Mainline's building (OK, not the bathrooms), and it's clear that Kearney believes his employees value exposure to natural light. "We had to fight the architects to get the windows we wanted downstairs," he says. There's a glass-enclosed skywalk, a staircase with an outside view, and even a serpentine window spanning both stories, hugging the curving contour of the building's steel frame. Two of the walls upstairs are composed entirely of glass. And then there are such outdoor-access areas as the lanai, a screened-in porch where employees can spend quality time with their laptops, undistracted by bugs or rain.
The abundance of windows suggests that Kearney had compelling data to show that employees wanted them. But the best evidence Kearney offers for the need for natural light is the testimony of a creative worker, albeit one of the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci is "known to have preferred to work by a window," says Kearney, who logically assumes that the Italian polymath, were he alive today, would be designing Web sites.
Then there's the modular furniture Kearney wanted, stackable pieces giving employees flexibility in terms of how high they could configure the walls of their eight-by-eight-foot cubicles. They've got options in terms of accessories too: pegboards, extra drawers, and windows that would let them gaze upon the faces of neighboring cubists. "If you create an ergonomic and a customizable work environment," Kearney explains, "employees can be just as happy in cubicles as in closed offices, because of the socialization that can occur among them." How, pray tell, did he come to possess that nugget? "I talked to the manufacturers of the furniture," he says, adding that they told him they get a "bad rap" from the Dilbertized masses. Further, he's factored in the findings of "independent studies that the manufacturers have either researched or commissioned or whatever."
Whatever source Kearney freely points to as having stoked his vision of the ultimate employee-centric workplace, it seems insufficient. He's read, for instance, about cutting-edge Web-design companies where the CEO works out in the open, either at a podium or at a stand-up desk. Not Kearney, who has a regular office. Why so conservative? "I don't think IBM executives would feel as comfortable meeting with us around a stand-up table," he says. That may be true, but the notion that Kearney would make it a priority to satisfy anyone else's taste seems implausible.
