Here's to the millions of Americans who live in a cube all day.

It's hard living in a cube. It's not by our choice. It's what's been made available. And whether we like it or not, it takes on a life of its own and reflects the workplace culture we live in - the pecking order, how we work together and even how we behave toward others.

Images of the 19th-century sweatshop or the early 20th-century shop floor come to mind. Today, there's Cubedom - with "insulated" walls that afford no privacy and are dull gray or black or another mood-depressing color. But cubes are economically prudent and efficient.

So how is Cubedom working for us? Does Cubedom really help us work better and increase productivity? We all know the way space is configured has everything to do with how we relate to one another. Put us in enclosed or dark spaces and we'll behave differently than if we are in open and airy spaces with lots of windows.

So, cubes matter. So does the work force.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan's quote at the Berlin Wall, isn't it time to tear down the walls?

It's always interesting to go into an organization and look at all the different ways people humanize their cubes. They adorn them with pictures of family and friends, with whiteboards, books, basketball hoops, coffee cups, and humor and cartoons.

Some even take the risk to raise their cube's profile by installing decorations of various types. One of the more interesting ones I've seen was a cube that had foam antlers sticking out of the top.

But what actually happens to our work relationships in Cubedom?

• The walls separate us: Rather than get up and walk over five rows and down eight cubes, we will send people e-mails. It's easier, faster and more efficient. In Cubedom, a premium is put on efficiency rather than relationship. It takes discipline, diligence and an extroverted personality to get out of our cubist patterns.
• Communication breaks down: With physical separation comes a breakdown in our communications. We can't see the expressions on the other person's face when they get our e-mails. We can't interpret or correct any misunderstandings, except in reaction to their return e-mails. Because over 70 percent of our communication is non-verbal, and written communications are so easily misinterpreted, Cubedom causes relationship problems rather than fixing them.
• Relationships are transactional: At the end of the day, we'll get our work done, but it will be through a series of transactions done over the intranet, rather than conversations or dialogues. Then we wonder why we have train wrecks.
• Teamwork suffers: I've seen people work together in a team on a specific project, then go back to their cubes and fire off memos that undercut the team-based process they had just completed. Without a different kind of glue than transactions, Cubedom becomes our refuge. Collaboration becomes almost impossible.

There is a quiet movement in business organizations across this country to tear down the walls that exist between us - in our cubes, between our departments, between job functions and between titles. The goals of this movement are to dramatically improve our relationships, build trust and increase collaboration so that our business results significantly improve. This leads to strategic choices leaders and managers can make to move beyond Cubedom by tearing down the walls:

• Leadership commitment: It starts with leadership recognizing that the walls exist, that the economic efficiencies of Cubedom are more than offset by the economic losses associated with relationship breakdowns and ineffective collaboration.
• A strategic goal: The organization's leadership team can consciously decide to change the culture by adopting a policy of creating an open-space work culture and having the physical office design serve the work culture rather than having the work culture be a reaction to a design done by the facilities department.
• Improved collaborative teamwork: These days, people are trying to collaborate in spite of how they have been set up to work. Collaboration can be significantly strengthened by giving people ownership over their workspaces.
• Strong performance incentives: Have the human resources system reinforce the need for tearing the walls down. Provide group/team incentives that reinforce cross-functional and cross-level teamwork. Work to eliminate other HR barriers to effective, trust-based relationships.

In a time of increased workplace chaos, the way to nurture our work force - and to make the workplace fit for the human spirit - is to find ways to humanize the workplace. Move beyond benefits programs to do this. Institutionalize the change to collaboration that feeds the human spirit, creates community and takes down the barriers that stand between us and our performing at the highest level of excellence possible.