The president of Canon Electronics Hisashi Sakamaki is also the author of a book called “A company will do well if you get rid of the chairs and computers” – available on Amazon.

According to his book, employees can concentrate on the meeting at hand without chairs and they have been able to half the number of meetings each year.

He also says that by standing at work, the employees develop a closer relationship with each other and that problems are solved much more quicker. The company also saves on the cost of buying chairs as you can see in the photo.

Also in the photo you can see a blue sign on the floor. When Nikkei went to interview the president, while walking in the corridor a siren and flashing lights went off. The corridor was designed to detect whether employees were walking at least 5 meters for every 3.6 seconds.

The blue sign on the floor also says “Lets rush – if we don’t then the company and world will perish.”

(from Danny Choo)

My opinion is that standing meetings are an excellent way to reduce meeting times. Threatening employees with the destruction of the earth if they aren’t ultra-productive, though? Not so much.