When I began my first management job, an entrepreneur friend gave me some useful advice: “Give your people space to moan about you.” Talking about the boss was an inevitable part of working life, she said, and a way for teams to establish camaraderie.

I remembered her words when the Financial Times reported that Terry Morgan, chief executive of Tube Lines, had no office, sitting instead at a desk on an open-plan floor where he gazed over his employees. Mr Morgan, whose company runs three London Underground lines, said: “The only privilege I?have is?the best view.”

Lynda Gratton, a London Business School professor, said of Mr Morgan's arrangement: “We'll see more of it. Organisations are moving to being more of networks. So sitting with your colleagues signals that you see it in a less hierarchical way.”