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Picture credit: virginmedia
Would you ever go to work completely naked? Would you be comfortable if your colleagues stripped off too and you all went about the daily routine in your business birthday suits? And, if the proceedings were filmed for TV broadcast?
Well that’s exactly what David Taylor (aka the Naked Leader) expected some unsuspecting brave workers to do recently.
He eventually persuaded the staff of a small Newcastle advertising agency that their journey towards business improvement depended on them all stripping off for the day.
This was not so much a dress-down Friday as a don’t-dress-at-all Friday and it takes balls to carry off such an exercise without becoming completely tacky.
I have known David Taylor since 1999 and occasionally shared a platform at IT events so watching his programme The Naked Office was an interesting opportunity for me to observe his coaching approach in a very, very different context.
Although the dénouement was quite different, the basic format of the show was very familiar: business guru helps struggling company to self-realisation. No surprise that improving team-work and communication would be the most likely outcomes of the exercise.
I appreciate that, in the interests of ‘good telly,’ much of any truly insightful footage ended up on the cutting-room floor rather than in the finished programme. Nevertheless I would have preferred to see more of the subsequent business upturn that followed the big bare day.
The end credits reeled off some impressive details about how fortunes have changed for onebestway which would seem to indicate a very successful intervention by David Taylor; but it would have been good to see the participants reflect on how they are now working differently since getting their kit off.
And, of course, the really big unresolved issue is: why did The Naked Leader remain fully clothed throughout, doesn’t David believe in eating his own dog chow?
Here’s how Fox TV News reacted to the show:
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Um, at first this sounded a bizzare idea but with pondering over it my thoughts went back in the past to my college and hostel days. We have been naked in the college (hope my principal or hostel warden is not reading); nothing beyond this; before your imagination run wild. And this bare your butt act actually helped us have a stronger friendship. I think the reason for it was that there was nothing hidden between us and we could be truly ourselves. There is honesty in our relationship.
In office we all mask our real identity and project to be someone else. Let us face it, we spend more time at work than with family; and just think about it that we pretend to someone else with people whom we spend most of the time.
To make it clear to the readers, I am not in favor of “Naked Fridays” at work place but this certainly got many of us to think and find something innovative to make work place a better place; no stabbing in the back……to start with.
[quote] no stabbing in the back [/quote]
True, where would the knife be hidden?