Work like it's Saturday - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing - American Executive

Work like it’s Saturday

Cover Story
Written by Jill Rose
Monday, 30 June 2008
Think about your activities on a typical Saturday. Perhaps you sleep in a bit, or maybe you get up early to pay a few bills or get some chores done before the rest of the family gets up. Later in the day, you might run errands, spend time with your children or with friends, or engage in some type of sport. What’s important to note is that although you have certain things you intend to accomplish, you are not measuring yourself by the clock. Some tasks may take longer than you’d like, but you certainly don’t wonder if you’ve put in enough hours on the laundry. And most likely, you move quickly through the required tasks so you can spend more time on leisure activities. In a results-only work environment (ROWE), every day feels like Saturday, say Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, authors of Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It (Portfolio, 2008). Ressler and Thompson believe that work sucks because we do not have control over our time. In a ROWE, traditional beliefs about when and how work takes place are thrown out, replaced by workers who have complete control—they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done. If this sounds silly and unachievable, wait one minute before you turn the page. Ressler and Thompson have migrated 80% of the corporate workers at Best Buy to a ROWE environment, and here’s what CEO Brad Anderson has to say: “What Cali and Jody did was remarkable because they gave the people at Best Buy not what they thought they needed to succeed at their jobs but what they really needed to succeed. We have embraced this new way of working at Best Buy because it’s good for business. Engaged employees are more productive, more innovative, more committed.” I don’t love my cube Let’s face it, say Ressler and Thompson, the way we’re clinging to the old ways of working in today’s technology environment is ridiculous—most of go to a physical space every day to do virtual work. What’s even more ridiculous is corporate America’s focus on time in the chair. “Take a person who is a really good worker—at 7:45 they’re a dedicated employee, great for the company. And at 8:15, they’re a slacker,” said Thompson. “In 30 minutes, you can go from being promotable to almost exiting the company.” Thompson and Ressler say the first step to fixing today’s broken work environment is admitting that work sucks. “When we start talking about work sucking, some people say ‘Oh, no, my work is my life, I get so much energy from it,’” said Thompson. “And, sure, we all get joy out of the work we do, but the way the workplace is set up, it sucks for most people. Especially the lower-ranking people.” The authors say the thing that’s in the way of work not sucking is something called sludge. “Sludge is that toxic workplace language that judges how people are spending their time,” said Thompson. “It’s not just the things we say out loud like ‘how come you’re late’ or ‘why do you get to leave early?’ or ‘people with kids never put in 40 hours.’ It’s self-sludge—that guilty feeling based on all the old beliefs.” When the focus is on time rather than performance, everyone has a compulsion to be at work early and stay late. “When you get rid of sludge and just focus on the good work people are doing, it’s completely liberating,” said Thompson. Scott Jauman, currently a master black belt for Best Buy’s services organization, agrees. “It seems insulting for someone to say, ‘You weren’t focused on results.’ Of course we’re focused on results! We have goals, etc., etc. But it’s a completely different level of focus in a ROWE environment. That was the huge ‘aha’ for me.” Jauman’s team of eight transitioned to ROWE early on in the Best Buy migration. A 20-year veteran of traditional corporations, he was initially skeptical about the idea, but his team wanted to try it. “I’ve often said the smartest thing I ever did was never tell anyone my concerns. I just said, ‘If the team is interested in it, we should take a look.’” After the transition, no one on Jauman’s team could imagine working any other way. Although he had hired his entire team away from other companies in the Twin Cities, for the three years he headed the team after transitioning to ROWE, no one left. In fact, said Jauman, one of his employees told him, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I’m working more hours than I was before, and I’ve never been happier.” Sludge eradication Ressler and Thompson, having nearly completed Best Buy’s migration, have their own company, CultureRx, dedicated to promoting this new way of working. They have migrated two small companies and are waiting on decisions from several more. “As you can imagine, it’s a scary proposition for many companies,” said Thompson. Scary or not, the results are undeniable. “A ROWE is like a magnet. Once people have freedom and autonomy, they will do whatever it takes to keep it,” said Thompson. “That creates company loyalty and a workplace full of entrepreneurs who care about the business and each other because they respect each other every day.” It takes six to nine months for a department to complete the three-phase migration to a ROWE environment, said Ressler. The first phase is designed to get leadership in tune with the philosophy of ROWE and its role as a business strategy. Phase two brings in the team and focuses on sludge eradication and how ROWE works on a daily basis. Phase three is about how the new environment is sustained and how it may evolve over time. “The training is paced so it doesn’t happen too quickly,” Ressler said. “People have the ability to start thinking about the things they need to give up, and how that makes them feel, and it allows them to work together to make this happen.” Ressler said the biggest challenge in making the transition is making sure managers don’t get drawn back into those old beliefs. “Because the culture of work in America is so strong, managers have a hard time accepting that this new way will work and giving it the time it needs,” she said. “During the transition, managers need to let it happen and not dive back in with rules and guidelines about core hours and when people need to be in the office and when and where they need to be doing their work. They need to become good managers instead of hall monitors.” Indeed, Thompson said that immediately after a team goes live in a ROWE, both managers and employees “get really wigged out about what they’re really supposed to be doing.” Before ROWE, employees came in at 8:00 and left at 5:00 and made sure they were doing something throughout. “Now, all of a sudden, it’s not about putting in time, so everyone gets with their manager and says they want to get clear on what they’re doing and how it will be measured,” she explained. Theoretically, they should know this already, but Thompson said what’s interesting is that when you’re looking at two things (time and results), you tend not to get clear on the results. “When you take that time element away, everyone is energized to get really clear about what’s important to the business,” she said. “When you’re not there every day, when you’re off in different places doing work, the only thing you can look at is results. So everyone wants to know exactly what those need to be so they’re contributing for their pay instead of just putting in time.” TiVo for work So, what does work look like for an employee in a ROWE? Ressler and Thompson say this environment can work anywhere there’s an office (type and size of company don’t matter), and they suggest thinking of it like TiVo for work. Just as there is no right or wrong way to watch TV, there is no right or wrong way to work. Someone might get up, answer some e-mails from home, run some errands while keeping in touch via cell phone, come into work at 10:00 and work until 4:00, go home, spend some family time, and log on to work for an hour or two later that night. One of the 13 guideposts Ressler and Thompson developed for this environment is that there is no judgment about how you spend your time; another is that all meetings are optional. That doesn’t mean meetings don’t take place, it’s just whoever wants to hold the meeting must sell the potential attendees on the idea that it will be productive and worthwhile. If you’re getting the idea that ROWE is more of a lifestyle than a new type of flextime, you’re right. And guess who wants to live this type of life—those workers many companies are having so much trouble retaining. “ROWE is the key to attracting and retaining Gen Y,” said Ressler. “This is exactly how Gen Y wants to live.” Having seen this in action at Best Buy, Thompson and Ressler are unequivocal. “Gen Yers are living and communicating this way before they enter the workplace. They’re not used to being in just one place doing work—to chain them to a cube and tell them when and where their work will happen is completely unproductive,” said Ressler. “ROWE is the answer to Gen Y.”

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