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As more people embrace this idea, more will have to concede that work is a human endeavor. Instead of shying away from that fact, embrace it. Celebrate it. Instead of insulating your organization from ideas like ROWE, tap into that humanity. Tap into that opportunity to learn.

The trend for successful companies is making them more human, not less human. It wasn’t that long ago that Best Buy was a regional electronics chain. We are now a global company with 140,000 employees. What has allowed this to happen has less to do with what we sell than how we’ve created a distinctly human culture that lets people have fun while working hard, that lets them be themselves, that trusts them to do their jobs. ROWE fits in perfectly with those ideals.

We have also embraced this new way of working at Best Buy because it’s good for business. Engaged employees are more productive, more innovative, more committed. It all gets back to that idea of unleashing the natural strengths and talents of your people. I’m eager to see where ROWE goes as more business leaders wake up to the fact that you have to pay more than lip service to the happiness and the development of your employees. Our people are what matter most.

—Brad Anderson, CEO, Best Buy

INTRODUCTION

We’ve Had Enough . . . Have You?

This book is based on a simple idea: Our beliefs about work—forty hours, Monday through Friday, eight to five—are outdated, outmoded, out to lunch. Every day people go to work and waste their time, their company’s time, and their lives in a system based on assumptions—about how work gets done and what work looks like—that don’t apply in today’s global, 24/7 economy.

We go to work and give everything we have and are treated like we’re children who, if left unattended, will steal candy.

We go to work and watch someone who isn’t very good at their job get promoted because they got in earlier and stayed later than anyone else.

We go to work and sit through overlong, overstaffed meetings to talk about the next overlong, overstaffed meeting.

We see talented, competent, productive people get penalized for having kids, for not being good at office politics, for being a little different.

We go to work in the Information Age, but the nature of the workplace hasn’t fundamentally changed since the Industrial Age.

But most of all—most tragically of all—we play the game. We play the game even though we know in our heart of hearts the game doesn’t make any sense.

Why do you think Sunday night is tinged with dread? That is you telling yourself that the way we work is unhealthy. That life isn’t meant to be lived this way. The modern workplace makes people physically and mentally sick, undermines families, and wastes precious time and energy. Everybody knows work sucks and yet we do nothing. If the dismal nature of work weren’t the norm; if our assumptions and expectations about work weren’t so ingrained; if, for example, work were some kind of new disease that suddenly appeared and cost businesses billions and ruined people’s lives, you can bet that we would be marshaling our collective resources to find a cure.

So why doesn’t it change?

Maybe because we assume that work has to be drudgery. (If it were fun it would be play, right?)

Maybe because we have been brought up to believe that by definition work is unproductive, political, and unfair.

Maybe because no one has proposed a reasonable, effective alternative.

Everywhere there are solutions that are not solutions.

The solution is not flextime. Flextime is a joke.

The solution is not work-life balance. Under the current system, balance is impossible.

The answer is not getting better organized, or No-Meeting Wednesdays, or setting your alarm fifteen minutes early to beat the morning rush, or spending a Saturday making all your lunches for the month.

There are no tips or tricks or helpful hints that are going to solve this