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This idea of completely letting go of the way we’re used to working makes a lot of people uncomfortable. As we’ll see, it can be a struggle for management to let go of this kind of control over their employees. A lot of people’s gut reaction to this idea is that it’s too big a change. If you give people complete control over getting their work done, that means completely giving up the old model of work. This is exactly the point of a ROWE, but that’s not easy for some people to take.

For example, look at the following online posting that was written as a response to a Business Week cover story on ROWE. The poster, writing under the name sheezheer, embodies this attitude that some flexibility is okay, but complete employee control would be chaos:

“We have the same options, although not as extreme. These are not new concepts just new levels. We have job sharing, flex time, can work from home on occasion, come in late, leave early, etc. as long as it doesn’t adversely affect performance. Presence in the office is warranted most of the time to avoid additional costs and coordinate information in groups, but not required all the time. This level of flexibility should be a PRIVILEGE (for the proven), not a RIGHT” (emphasis his or hers).

Privilege is a funny word, isn’t it? Isn’t that a word we use with children when we feel the need to remind them who’s in control? Do your homework, young man, or no Xbox. Video games are a privilege not a right!

According to sheezheer, the ideal state of work is still in the office, in meetings, in the physical space. In other words, we’re back to the idea that because a company owns the product of your work they also own your time. They have control over where you are and when. A little flexibility is okay, but too much flexibility is “extreme.” You need to be remarkable to be treated like an adult.

We’re also back to the Flexibility Con Game. In fact, as the following table shows, one way of defining a Results-Only Work Environment is by showing what it’s not. Because it’s definitely not flextime. In a ROWE employee control isn’t a perk—it’s the norm.

There’s a misperception out there that just because a manager lets an employee go to a dentist appointment, then that’s flexible working. That’s not flexible working at all. ROWE is really putting the freedom and the power back in the employees’ hands to determine what and how and when people work best. A Results-Only Work Environment is about recognizing and acting on people’s need to have more control over their lives to meet all the demands in their lives.

In other words, no matter how flexible a nontraditional schedule is it’s still a schedule. Flexible schedule is an oxymoron. Which is why in a ROWE there are no schedules.

So how can this possibly be? Not that anyone wants Sludge, but what happens when the status quo starts to break down? If I’m not playing time games with myself and other people anymore, if I’m really free to do whatever I want (and you are—this is not a trick), then how do I measure my performance? How does my manager judge my work? What am I supposed to be doing with my time?

These concerns are addressed by the second half of the definition of a ROWE: as long as the work gets done.

“As long as the work gets done” is no small thing. As we said in the last chapter, a Results-Only Work Environment is not about working less or making work go away. Those five projects? You still have them. But instead of measuring your performance based on the outcome of those projects plus a sprinkling of face time, getting in early, and kissing your boss’s ass, you are only measured on results. If you do a good job then you are rewarded and paid and promoted based on the job you do and nothing else. We’ve arrived at Phil’s idea of getting real with what you can do and then intensely focusing on business results.

There are going to be skeptics who will say that their workplace is already