Seth Godin recently ran an excerpt from his book Free Prize Inside that got us thinking about fear in the workplace. Godin finds the root of workplace angst in Henry Ford’s decision to pay workers based on productivity rather than replacement value. His take is that we’re insecure in our jobs because deep down we know that we’re replaceable.

We’d like to add another source of our insecurity. When you go into work today you have two responsibilities. One is to get your job done. The other is to meet the cultural expectations of your workplace. The cultural expectations are the unwritten rules and codes that add a layer of complexity to your job. Some of those cultural expectations may include:

1. Being on time

2. Showing obedience to your boss

3. Using certain buzzwords or slogans

4. Sending ideas up through “proper channels”

Not all cultural expectations are bad. There are work cultures that genuinely value transparency, innovation, community involvement, and so forth.

But there are also cultural expectations that are crippling and destructive. If you’re stuck in a workplace that has any of the unwritten rules we mentioned above, then you know what we mean.

Take the relatively common example of a workplace that strictly enforces traditional working hours. You may be absolutely terrific at your job, but if you’re not on time every day (or if you leave “early” one day) then you’re branded a bad worker. So you have to be afraid of your kids taking too long to get ready. You have to be afraid of catching a bad break during your commute. You have to be afraid of something coming up in your life that might require you to leave at 4:00 instead of 5:00.

You’re afraid of being replaced not only because someone else could do your job, but because someone else might be more willing to tolerate the culture. We wonder how much workplace insecurity out there actually has to do with people worrying about not being able to do their jobs. How many people are in over their heads when it comes to the task at hand? And how many people feel like they’re drowning because of the culture of their workplace? Let us know.

Monster.com’s blog is running a contest that asks the eternal question: Is Your Job Like a Sitcom? Judging by the responses so far (contest ends May 5th), the answering seems to be that yes, most people’s jobs are pretty much like a sitcom.

Just check out this excerpt from a contest entry about life at a small brokerage firm:

“Usually at any time of the day they have what is known as their alley. This alley begins at my desk and goes past the assistants. This alley is used for football, soccer and softball practice. I usually am ducking half the day while on the phone trying to work. The ball hits me in the head and I just keep right on talking. There is a five dollar fee for any direct hits to me or the items on my desk!”

So this poor woman goes to work every day and things are so out of control, her only recourse is to charge money when she gets hit by a poorly thrown football.

As one of the entrants notes, “At the end of the day, there are a million stories in these buildings and no one would believe any of them because we live the stories and we can’t believe them ourselves.” That sentence (and the football-dodging worker’s story) sum up the challenge facing all of us. Your workplace’s culture, no matter how broken, still operates almost invisibly. The daily indignities and absurdities are so commonplace that you barely notice them. You might even feel embarrassed to complain about them. It’s just the way it is, right?

What a lot of people might not realize is that cultures can change. You can complain, especially if you have a reasonable alternative. Even if you aren’t in a position to implement ROWE, you still have the right to talk to your manager or your coworkers about results. What exactly are we trying to accomplish here? What can we all do to drive those outcomes? And can you please talk to those guys about “the alley”? Because there is work to do.

We don’t just preach about the joys of a Results-Only Work Environment. We live them every day. And so we’d like to offer a story of our own ROWE.  As we mentioned before, we’re currently working on the ROWE Launch Kit: Office Edition, a tool we’re creating so teams, departments and organizations can transform their workplace from one that focuses on time and physical presence, to one that focuses only on results. To make this happen, we have assembled a team of writers, designers, manufacturers, project managers and so forth. The expectation is that they will drive outcomes on their own, without constant supervision, or scheduled check-ins, or tons of meetings.

Of course, we still meet. But meetings work a little differently in a ROWE, where one of the rules (we call them Guideposts) is that Every Meeting is Optional. Last Friday, we called a meeting to review some materials from the printer. What happened will give you an idea of a ROWE in action.

1. The entire Kit team was invited, but not everyone came. Key people (designer, creative director, etc.) showed up because they knew their input was essential. We trusted them to recognize this fact, and they came through. In a ROWE, people treat the business as their own. You don’t have to mark the meeting “mandatory.” People are adults. They get it.

2. We covered for the people who didn’t make it. Even though the project manager wasn’t there, that didn’t mean that we didn’t cover project management issues. When those points came up, another member of the team stepped up and filled that role. A ROWE naturally creates this kind of cross-functional performance. I fill in for you at this meeting, because I know you’ll fill in for me the next time I’m not present.

3. Some people stayed for the whole hour; others didn’t. The outcome of the meeting was to finalize color and proofread some content. The designer was only responsible for the color, so once that was done, he left. The rest of us stayed for another 45 minutes. When design issues came up later in the meeting, we handled it the same as we did with the project management issues. The team figured it out. What we couldn’t figure out we put in an e-mail to the designer, who answered our questions later that day. If it were something urgent, we could have called him. He has a phone.

4. No one questioned where the missing people were. We were getting results. Period. What does it accomplish to gossip about the whereabouts of the “missing” team members?

5. We had fun. Because we don’t meet as often, or have as many meetings, the meetings we have are productive and fun. No one in that coffee shop had sat through four pointless, overly long meetings already that day. Everyone was cheerful, rested and fresh.

Every Meeting is Optional does not mean that no one meets anymore. Or that no one cares. In fact, anyone walking past our table would have looked at us and thought, “Oh, they’re having a perfectly ordinary, everyday, normal business meeting.”

With one small difference.

None of us looked like we’d rather be dead.

One of the risks of getting wrapped up in your own world is that you get  . . . well . . . wrapped up in your own world. Which is why we are grateful to Tim Walker for his post about relying on your brain instead of relying on technology.

We spend a lot of time talking about how technology frees people to work whenever they want and from anywhere. And it’s true: part of what makes a Results-Only Work Environment so successful is the widespread availability of laptops and cell phones.

But technology isn’t the whole story. In a ROWE, the point isn’t to see who can get the most done over e-mail, or who can stay out of the office the longest, or who can work from the most remote location. Technology gives people the power to live “untethered,” but if they’re not putting results first, then they’re not living up to the promise of ROWE.

A workplace that had zero technology could still be a ROWE. People could still do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work got done. They could still decline meeting invitations where the desired outcome of the meeting wasn’t clear. They could still challenge their boss to give them meaningful goals, rather than thirty things that would be nice to accomplish that year. They could still serve the customer and not the clock.

We call this using the “ROWE mindset.” It’s a way of looking at work and the world and solving problems based on what needs to get done, not our assumptions about how work needs to get done. Technology just makes it all shiny and pretty.

. . . and yet still so close.

When we first started working on the framework for what would become a Results-Only Work Environment, we didn’t have a language for what we were trying to say. We knew that work was deeply dysfunctional, and that people had all kinds of strange beliefs about time and how work gets done, but we didn’t have the vocabulary for it that we have now. So when we needed to explain ourselves, we knew we could always point at a Dilbert comic.

This recent post on Scott Adams’ blog reminded us of those early days. Because even though we’re deep in our own world of ROWE, some things haven’t changed. It’s still all about giving people control over their time. It’s about giving them real choices for how they live their lives.

Adams gives three satiric choices for how people can wisely manage their time:

1. Become independently wealthy

2.  Don’t eat or sleep

3. Live for the moment, but be prepared to live on cat food when you retire.

He’s kidding, but some of the comments are no joke. It’s scary to think that, for a lot of people, the idea of actually having control over your life seems as likely as winning the lottery.

A quick post today to answer a question that we get a lot (and one that has recently bubbled up through the comments on this blog):

This Results-Only Work Environment thing sounds great. So where do I go to work in one?

Right now, there are two authentic ROWEs: Best Buy, Inc. and J. A. Counter & Associates, a small investment firm located in Wisconsin. We are currently working with other companies (whose names we can’t disclose yet) on migrating them from a traditional work environment to a ROWE. We are also developing a kit that will let teams, departments and organizations make this transformation themselves. (Not a commercial . . . just sayin’.)

But we can’t do it alone. And it’s not going to happen overnight. Right now ROWE is an idea. Before ROWE get on the menu of choices for job seekers, it’s going to have to become a movement.

We realize this is a tall order. But there are small, daily steps that people can take to make ROWE a reality. First and foremost: talk to people. You don’t need to be preachy. It’s more a matter of asking the right questions. Why are we so obsessed with time? Why do we spend our lives in wasteful meetings? Why don’t we focus more on results?

Trite but true: the first step to solving a problem is acknowledging that there is one. If we can get enough people to be actively fed up with the status quo, then we have a fighting chance of changing it.

A friend sent us this link to Guy’s Bozoification Aptitude Test, which is based on Guy Kawasaki’s blog entry about how to tell if your company is “sliding into bozosity.”

We know it’s an old post, but this kind of thing never gets old. Right now, a fresh crop of young people is entering the workforce. Right now, they’re being conditioned to behave based on a set of broken assumptions about work. Right now, veterans of the workforce are turning a blind eye to the problem and teaching these new hires how to get along in the world. Work sucks, but what can you do, right?

We encourage you to take this quiz. And by all means, have a laugh. It’s funny. But we also encourage you to consider what would happen if we tried to change the culture of work.

For example, check out Question #7:

“Time is now considered more important than money so you have a company cafeteria, health club, and pet grooming service. Moreover, the first thing that employees show visitors is the company cafeteria, health club, and pet grooming service.”

Reading this made us think of a recent post about “The Walk of Shame” on The Juggle, the Wall Street Journal’s work-life blog. (The walk of shame is that feeling you have when you leave the office before “normal” quitting time.) Check out all the comments.  Even in companies that are “flexible,” people are still obsessed with time, as opposed to focusing on results.

The workplace perks that Guy makes fun of are just like the benefits of flexibility: an illusion. We can’t help but wonder how often the “walk of shame” takes people past the cafeteria, the health club and the pet grooming service. Maybe a better option than flexibility is control. Instead of giving people access to an on-site gym, they could have the freedom to workout whenever, and wherever, they wanted.

Which would you rather have?

We’ve been watching (with great interest) as Michael and Aaron discuss of our recent post How Do You Do 80% of a Job? We love seeing this passion.

They are having what we sometimes call “The Conversation.” The Conversation often has nothing to do with the topic. The Conversation is all about processing the implications of ROWE. (It doesn’t even have to be adversarial. Sometimes The Conversation happens between two people who are both really into ROWE).

We’ve been dealing with this phenomenon from the beginning and still deal with it today. Someone asks us, “So what are you working on?” We take a deep breath and tell them about ROWE, knowing full well that we’re going to be talking about it for at least another twenty minutes. In the five years we’ve been working on this project, not once (not once!) has someone heard the line “People can do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done” and wanted to change the subject.

Are you interested in having a little fun with someone? Introduce the ROWE definition to someone who’s never heard it before. It doesn’t matter if you support ROWE or are skeptical. You can be completely neutral. Just float that definition out there and see what the reaction is.

If the person you’re talking with asks for more information, play it cool. Say, “I don’t know much more about it. There’s this new way of working where people get to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done. What do you think?”

Then sit back and watch the gears start turning. Chances are you’ll have The Conversation. See how long it lasts and then tell us how it goes.

According to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey, one out of four workers admit to making up fake excuses for being late to work. Here are the top ten “most unusual” excuses given:

1.   While rowing across the river to work, I got lost in the fog.
2.   Someone stole all my daffodils.
3.   I had to go audition for American Idol.
4.   My ex-husband stole my car so I couldn’t drive to work.
5.   My route to work was shut down by a Presidential motorcade.
6.   I wasn’t thinking and accidentally went to my old job.
7.   I was indicted for securities fraud this morning.
8.   The line was too long at Starbucks.
9.   I was trying to get my gun back from the police.
10.  I didn’t have money for gas because all of the pawn shops were
closed.

We appreciate someone trying to get a laugh, but in when you use the ROWE mindset, none of these excuses are funny. Because there is no such thing as a good excuse, a bad excuse or an unusual excuse in a ROWE. The only thing that matters is whether or not the work is getting done.

In our world, we talk about socially acceptable excuses and socially unacceptable excuses. Socially acceptable excuses are the kinds that the article lists as the most common: traffic, getting the kids ready, etc. Socially unacceptable excuses would be something like “drank too much last night and needed to sleep it off” or “the thought of coming in and doing this soul-stealing job had me nailed to the mattress as I hit the snooze bar repeatedly until the fear of getting fired motivated me to get out of bed.”

In all those cases the person might come in a half hour or an hour late. In all of those cases, the person might have gone on to have a very productive day. The person may have even missed a meeting, but was still able to recover that lost experience and contribute to the bottom line. In the end, the nature of the excuse doesn’t really matter. As the article says, a little over a quarter of the managers surveyed are skeptical about whether they’re even true. If one in four employees lies about coming in late, one in four managers don’t believe the lies.

Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine taking excuses entirely out of the workplace. Employees don’t give them. Managers don’t ask for them. What happens? Do people start coming in later and later and later? Or do they come in more or less at the same time? Are people more productive or less productive? Or the same?

Finally, we did find a ray of hope in this article, which notes that “43 percent of hiring managers say they don’t mind if their employees are late as long as their work is completed on time with good quality.” We think this is great news for all of us who are passionate about the ROWE revolution. That means that almost half of the population generally believes that results are more important than time. Maybe with a little work we could get that number north of fifty. We think that would be a change for the better.

We’ve already covered how the legal profession is having a serious internal conversation about balance. Now it seems this issue is affecting doctors as well.

The word in the article that really jumped out at us was “sacrifice,” as in “[Australian Medical Association] president Rosanna Capolingua called on senior doctors to rethink their expectations of young medicos, who were not willing to make the same sacrifices for their jobs.”

The sacrifice in question is time. The idea is that if you are willing to give up your time to your job, then you must be a better worker. Those who make the biggest sacrifices (the story cites 120 hours a week!) deserve the biggest rewards in terms of money, title and prestige.

We don’t dispute that becoming good at something takes a lot of time. And it’s true that high performers do make sacrifices in order to achieve their goals. But while we should recognize and appreciate excellence, it’s wrong for us to applaud sacrifice. What really matters is the value that someone delivers. If a doctor (or any other profession) can deliver the goods in 30 hours, then that doesn’t diminish their accomplishment. If someone else wants to put in 120 hours, that’s their choice. But let’s look at what they are contributing, not how long it took to do it.

Besides, do we really want doctors who only live for work? Wouldn’t it be better (for us and for them) to be whole people with full lives?