Having a rule or prescribed manner in which distance should be covered is a common feature among most pilgrimages. Rarely are these intended to improve the comfort or welfare of the pilgrim, in most cases, it’s quite the opposite. For example, a Tibetan pilgrimage requires pilgrims to perform body-length prostrations along a rocky path for 50 km – suffering is a necessary part of the journey [9]. Whereas most of us hope to be saved from pain, others hope to be saved through pain [10].

Though far from Tibet, I still walked through the cold, wet southern Australian winter and felt as though I must have a lot to be saved from the pain I was experiencing. However, my motivation for walking in winter was to avoid the bushfire season and Australia’s infamous snakes which are too smart to be out in the cold. The truth is, I had no interest in aligning my walk to the discomforts of a pilgrimage. In fact, I was carrying an inflatable pillow – a testament to how little comfort I was willing to forfeit.

Despite my pillow and many other attempts to maintain comfort, I couldn’t dodge discomfort and adversity, and with them came invaluable insights.

In The 3rd Man [11] Orson Welles reminds us that during the terror and bloodshed that prevailed in Italy for the 50 years the Borgias ruled, there emerged Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and The Renaissance. Switzerland, on the other hand, had 500 years of democracy, peace, and brotherly love and has given us the cuckoo clock.

Countless examples exist where challenging circumstances have produced invaluable lessons, fresh thinking, and innovation. You might even have experienced that yourself. Why then, do we seek to avoid adversity so much in the workplace?

Comfort in the workplace is a prolific area of research. A hunt for the optimal lighting, ambient temperature, noise levels and other environmental conditions intended to mostly increase productivity [12]. To this end, it would seem right, even obvious, to aspire to be like Switzerland. Maybe even with some hints of peppermint odour to improve speed and accuracy while typewriting [13]. But what if our desired outcome was more closely aligned to The Renaissance, could adverse environments lead to Renaissance-like innovation?

There is an irony that I hope will not be lost in that after packing a pillow, I am now questioning comfort. And I certainly prefer the smell of peppermint over the flattened and decomposing corpses of the kangaroos littering the roadsides to Sydney. To be clear, I’m not talking about unnecessary adversities in the workplace, but what requires further examination is why we pursue more frictionless cuckoo-clock work environments, when innovation might be better served by exploring the type of adversities worth keeping, and perhaps even introduced in the workplace.

Could pilgrimising the workplace lead to Renaissance-like outcomes?

Our next tricky, very tricky, signpost is:

figure a

Explaining the usefulness of adversity is not what makes this signpost problematic. After all, adversity has been recognised as a path to wisdom [14] – even salvation for some. For the record, a study [15] found that those whose work required logic and objectivity in their outputs tended to be more emotionally stable (think Switzerland and the cuckoo clocks) whereas those producing creative outputs had experienced more adversity, such as depression (think Italy during the Borgias and the Renascence). The study points to a ‘powerful relation’ between adversity and creativity.

We have also been cautioned about the dire consequences of ironing out adversity. Nietzsche warned of the risks of aspiring to a society which seeks comfort and routine as this could breed an apathetic person who is tired of life, takes no risk, and has no dreams [16]. Fortunately, there are people preventing us from meeting such a fate. A team of researchers [17] are reframing the perceptions of risk in outdoor play areas to ensure children benefit from uncertainty and challenges in increasingly risk-averse playgrounds.

What is tricky about Signpost 4 is finding practical ways in which adversity in the workplace can lead to innovation, while recognising that adversity is, well, adverse and we would do well to avoid it despite any benefits it might deliver. This is the trickiest part of our fourth Signpost and the one which points in the opposite direction to how workplace design deals with adversity – and so it will be discussed in Part V.