Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It_ The Results-Only Revolution - Cali Ressler [22]
As long as there is Sludge, you’ll never be free.
We have to eradicate Sludge.
Once you get wise to the existence of Sludge you start to see it everywhere. It can be a liberating feeling, like you now have a word for something that you’ve known about your entire life but couldn’t quite name. Seeing Sludge everywhere can also make you feel gross. And it is everywhere. You find it in your home, at work, with your friends. You start getting attuned to all of the strange and unfair ways we judge people.
Some of this is human nature. There is a certain amount of Sludge that will never go away, and when it comes to Sludge in your family or community or in the world of politics, there may be no answer.
But work is another story, in part because there is an expectation to be professional. Even though we don’t really behave the way we should, we’re supposed to be neutral, objective, calm, and fair. This expectation is one of the few norms about work that is beneficial. The key is to make that norm more than lip service. And that requires the eradication of Sludge.
When people move from a traditional work environment to a ROWE we call it “migration.” It starts with a team kickoff where we introduce the ideas of time, belief, and judgment. We give them a language to describe why work sucks. We introduce Sludge.
The reason for this is simple. If there is no Sludge, then it’s harder (or even impossible) to reinforce the status quo. If you take away people’s ability to judge themselves and others based on time, then it’s harder for time to be used as a measure for performance. If you take away people’s ability to judge themselves and others based on what work looks like and how work gets done, then it’s harder for beliefs about work to be used as a measure for performance. Getting rid of Sludge is the first step, the crucial step, toward creating a Results-Only Work Environment.
This might seem like a big job. Sludge is pervasive, universal, and in some cases, even fun. How do you eradicate it from an entire workplace?
The first thing people need to do is refrain from giving Sludge. This is simply a matter of being more aware of the way we judge people in the workplace. Everyone is different. Some people are more obsessed with how work looks. Others are time minders. You have to search your own soul for your own contribution to the status quo. Are you a clock-watcher? Do you keep silent note of other people’s hours? Or are you biased toward personality? If you’re in a meeting, do you assume that the people who keep to themselves and listen aren’t contributing? (Or vice versa: Sometimes we judge the overly talkative as using conversation to mask the fact that they don’t have anything concrete to add.)
Once you find out what your biases are, try to look at people in another way. We’re not saying that you have to be nice to everyone or that you have to be a better person. We’re only asking that you act like a better person. You’re going to judge people, so judge them on their performance, on their ability to meet goals. Take time and place out of the equation. (You can still judge people as incompetent, but it has to be for the right reasons.) Cutting down on your Sludge output is pretty doable. You just have to keep asking yourself, What needs to get done? Is this person (or am I) delivering or not? Everything else—when they come in, how much time they spend in their cube, how long their lunch lasts—is no longer your concern. We think you’ll find just doing this to be liberating.
Remember the break room Sludge jar that some teams installed in the early days? The funny thing was that those jars remained largely empty. Once we identified Sludge and once people knew what was at stake (that if they could get rid of Sludge they would get more freedom and control over their time) no one wanted to do it. People thought, Even