Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It_ The Results-Only Revolution - Cali Ressler [51]
In a ROWE people automatically edit their own work and remove low priority tasks. Just as they have the power to challenge the need to attend a meeting, they have the power to challenge whether or not a piece of their job is the best use of their time or if it is even necessary at all. Suddenly in a ROWE everyone is an innovative thinker because if they can get their job done more quickly and efficiently then they have more time for themselves. As long as they can drive the results, they are rewarded with control over their time.
This doesn’t mean that people get to skip a critical process or that they can do as little as possible to get by or to call something unnecessary just to get out of working. Instead it means that people take ownership of the work they do because they have the power to decide what is best for them. What is their best work style? What are their most productive hours of the day? How are they best able to contribute to the company?
People talk about the waste falling away as if by magic. But it’s not magic—it’s a focus on results. If you have a job description then you measure your performance based on that description of what you’re supposed to be doing. But there is no incentive to challenge how you spend the time. If you have a clear goal then you can mentally test whether or not the activity furthers the goal.
Most important of all, when you give people back their time they treat it preciously because they own it again. As we’ll see in the next chapter, that completely changes not only how work gets done, but also how work feels.
Voices from a ROWE: Javier
Javier is an individual contributor working in Best Buy’s dot-com division. He is in his early fifties and has been in a ROWE for two years.
Recently, the SVP of my department asked me how I was doing with ROWE. I’ve always thought that ROWE was great, but it’s taken on a new meaning for me now.
About three weeks ago, I received news that my brother had passed away. He lived in Indiana. The news of his death was obviously difficult to handle, but it had an added piece of stress. You see, my mother has Alzheimer’s and my brother had been her main caretaker along with a helper who is with her on weekdays. So not only was I trying to wrestle with the sadness of his passing away, but I was immediately wondering how my mother would continue to receive the care she needs. I was completely overwhelmed, wondering how I was going to handle this. Quite frankly, I didn’t know what I was going to do.
I e-mailed my team about what had happened and that I would be leaving for Indiana to attend the funeral. I didn’t even go into the Alzheimer’s issues. My coworkers wanted to help, and offered to take care of my work for me while I was gone. They said I could go back to Indiana, focus on my family stuff, and not have to think at all about work. This was a nice gesture, but I knew I wanted to stay connected with my job at Best Buy. I know a lot of companies think that when a family member dies, you “should” disconnect yourself for a while. In fact, some companies force you to do that. But in my case, I really wanted to stay connected to benefit both myself and the company—probably myself even more than the company. I knew that having this distraction of being able to work would actually help me cope with everything.
With that being said, I went home to Indiana for the funeral and took my laptop with me. I continued doing my work and was able to handle that in addition to my family responsibilities. I felt fine about doing both and continued wanting to do both.
I didn’t use any vacation time while I was in Indiana. In fact, I didn’t track any time off at all. Now that I’m on ROWE, tracking any kind of time off seems ludicrous. It’s not about taking time off—it’s about getting work done, however that