Does it not seem like open-office etiquette to take a phone call in a private space when other people are trying to work?
I do think that it's on management to try to segregate groups that don't talk much and prefer quiet from groups whose jobs involve a lot of phone conversations but it's not practical for many roles to avoid talking on their desk phone. That's why they have one.
A critical piece of making the open space work is people being open with another. For watching big events on tv, you can take that into a conference room too. Cheer all you want. Gotta call your partner or someone else? Go in a room.
Who is going to assume the authority when a company is promoted as having a flat hierarchy, or holocracy, etc.? If the CEO is speakerphoning or fomenting adhoc floor meetings in an open-plan, nobody is going to say it's bad.
It's not about saying "it's bad". It's about talking about what might be better. Flat hierarchy or not, anyone should be able to bring up the topic.
And if you can't, that's a bad place to be working. There should be some kind of trust between people.
You don't need any kind of hierarchy to have real leaders. Every where I've been, you just step up and try to make it happen. Most of the time a bunch of other people are going to "thank you!". It won't always work and you can be diplomatic in how you approach it. But just make it happen and stop waiting for someone else to do it.
And if they, whomever they is, don't like it, move on.
It's not like people never actually comment on how they'd like to change their job environment. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the most common complaint among humans in general!
Do you have any examples of non-management fomenting a change in the entire physical architecture of their office, or other large change in a company?
I think your comment is ironic considering your previous comment:
>but there are plenty of idiots who turn off air conditioning, open the windows or pull up curtains regardless of everyone else's comfort.
Unfortunately, team culture takes precedence over neat tools. It's just a common thing on my team to do take calls at your desk.
For anyone who doesn't want to drop their email into their webpage to see pricing (yes, I received an outreach email within 15 minutes of doing so) their pricing starts at $4.5k and $14k "on sale". Bit steep for my blood, but, there's obviously some bigger spenders out there!