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The reason is that the rules of work have more to do with enforcing how work looks than actually getting work done. We don’t give people the freedom to run their own lives because they would take advantage, right? If we weren’t all in the same building working, someone would abuse the privilege. They would be off doing something socially unacceptable with their time. If you leave people alone to do what they want to do then they will steal and cheat and fornicate like animals.

We’ve found that just the opposite happens. When people are in a ROWE they are actually more responsible rather than less because they are now being rewarded with freedom. What happens is that, rather than take advantage, people actually get more work done. Rather than people ignoring customers in favor of their own fun, they end up becoming more customer focused. Rather than acting entitled, they are humbled by the trust that has been given to them.

In a traditional workplace there is a line between socially acceptable behavior and socially unacceptable behavior. A ROWE erases that line. In a ROWE everything is acceptable as long as work gets done. And if the results aren’t there, then that is what is unacceptable. Not your attendance or your tendency to be shy in meetings or your tattoos or your weird laugh. You don’t get your job done and you don’t get to keep your job. If you do your job you get freedom.

YEAH, BUT ...

“What if someone needs you when you’re at the movies?”

The answer to this question is that you can’t always reach people in a traditional work environment. Does it matter if someone is grocery shopping or at a meeting? Either way they’re booked. The only difference is that in a traditional work environment being out grocery shopping is socially unacceptable. Furthermore, if there is a genuine emergency and only one person can help then that’s a larger problem than one person’s availability.

Teams start to work together more effectively as well. You get natural cross training and backup because everyone is benefiting from this freedom. As long as the goals and expectations are clear, people realize that if we take care of our customers then we have time for ourselves. People stop spending time and energy pretending to conform to their workplace’s cultural norms and instead spend that time and energy doing their jobs. Rather than trying to look busy all the time or trying to look like good workers, they simply get their jobs done. They meet their customer’s expectations instead of their boss’s expectations about what work looks like.

This new attitude changes the workday. When any use of time is a socially acceptable use of time, people naturally expand the hours during which they are willing to work, even if they don’t necessarily work more hours. We’re back to the TiVo for your work idea. So someone might get up, answer some e-mails while they’re still at home, then maybe run some errands in the morning (while keeping in touch via cell phone) and then come into work at ten and work until four, then go home, live their life a little, and then log on for an hour or two later that night. They’re getting the same work done as if they got up, got ready, got to work at eight, and left at five; but instead some of the work happens before typical work hours and some happens after typical work hours.

That visit to the supermarket at nine in the morning instead of at the end of the day is key. When we remove the barrier between socially acceptable and socially unacceptable uses of time, then people have control over their lives. That balance between demand and control we talked about previously is restored. They are now getting things done in their lives and getting things done in their jobs, and the two don’t necessarily feel that different.

The impact this change can have on people’s lives can be huge. Some people use this Guidepost to do everyday things, like spontaneously