Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It_ The Results-Only Revolution - Cali Ressler [28]
But we would challenge any business in terms of how thoroughly they embrace a results-only approach. Does the organization even in a small way still reward (or punish) people based on time? Are there core hours? Or if you aren’t performing does your manager suggest you put in more time? Or do your coworkers judge one another based on the clock? Furthermore, does everyone in the organization work in a results-only model?
What’s tricky about these beliefs is that we often don’t know we have them. Once we were speaking to a group of high-level people in a Fortune 100 company. To demonstrate how pervasive the unwritten rules of a culture are, and how they are a part of a larger cultural system of work, we asked them what time was considered coming in “on time.”
Because they knew about ROWE they had already anticipated our game. They said, “We can come in any time.” Some of them were even kind of smug about it, as if to say, See, we’re flexible.
But then we asked, “Can everybody at your company come in whenever they want, just like you?” This sobered them up and they then admitted that not everybody could come in when they wanted to. When we asked again what coming in on time was, they all knew the exact time to the minute. The same was true for what was considered leaving “early.” Because they were high-level employees the rules may not have applied to them (they’d “earned” freedom and trust), but it certainly was the unwritten rule of the culture to mind the clock or suffer the consequences.
A Results-Only Work Environment is companywide. At Best Buy, ROWE is not for the top performers or the directors on up, nor does it disappear during the busy season. It’s for everybody, all the time. It’s the focus of how work gets done.
In a ROWE, you stop paying people for activities and start paying them for outcomes.
In a ROWE, you stop paying people for a chunk of time and start paying them for a chunk of work.
“As long as the work gets done” is an absolute. The employer’s job is to create very clear goals and expectations. We’re not talking about job descriptions, which quite frankly only provide the most basic expectations for what an employee is supposed to do. We’re talking crystal clear expectations for what needs to get done on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. Then it’s up to the employee, with the coaching and guidance of management, to meet those goals and expectations. If problems or challenges arise along the way, it’s the work—and not hours worked or the perception the employee is creating—that comes under scrutiny. Employees are expected to bring their full powers to accomplish their goals. Employers trust that the work will get done. Anything that is not related to the task at hand falls away.
This idea of only focusing on getting the job done has an enormous ripple effect.
For example, one question we often get when we talk to people is what happens if someone gets their job done in thirty-six hours rather than forty? Is there an obligation to ask for four more hours of work? Or should the manager then give that person four more hours of work?
The answer is neither because you’re not judging performance based on time. You are only rewarded based on outcomes. As a result, in a ROWE you approach work differently because rather than being punished for getting your work done more quickly or more efficiently, you are rewarded.
The right question to ask yourself in a ROWE, when you’re at the halfway point in your week or your project or your day, is “Am I doing what I need to do to meet my goals?” If the answer is yes, then you’re on track.