ROWE on Brazen Careerist
May 27th, 2008 by Cali & Jody
First, the book officially comes out in two days. We can hardly believe it.
Second, we appreciated being mentioned in Adam McFarland’s thoughtful post on Brazen Careerist. We especially appreciate the fact that he has decided to take action:
I realize that this all starts with me. I’m the one usually “proposing” these wacky things to my partners so I have to prove the concept before I can expect them to get on board. 20 hours isn’t realistic right now because we don’t have an employee and won’t for a while. However, I’m always looking to make progress and prove my point so I’ve decided to limit myself to 35 hours of work each week. After a few months, I’m going to make it 30. Then I’ll stay at 30 until we have our 2-3 employees in place and trained.
We’d like to see more people like Adam challenge the 40-hour workweek. But we’d also like to see people push themselves even farther, and do something even more radical:
Stop thinking about work in terms of time.
We’d love for Adam to work 35 hours a week, or 30 hours, or 20 hours, or four. For entrepreneurs like him, the work-life balance issue is the amount of time spent working. But for most rank-and-file employees, the bigger issue is control.
In a Results-Only Work Environment, you may work less than 40 hours, or you may work more, but even if you work 60 hours a week, you do it on your own terms. In a ROWE, you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, as long as the work gets done. In practice, this translates to working at non-traditional hours (and in non-traditional places) but it’s all up to you. You choose when and where to work, and when you have that kind of power and control over your life (when you get to truly live as an adult) you’re not counting the minutes like you do in a traditional work environment.
Working in a ROWE is a lot like getting things done on the weekend in a traditional workweek. You don’t track your hours while you’re running errands on a Saturday. There is an awareness of time, but not a strict accounting of time. Just that simple change can make a world of difference.
I received notice from Amazon, a couple days ago, that my copy of your book shipped. I am watching the mail!
This sounds great from the perspective of the employee, but from the perspective of the manager, how do you judge if the workload is too much or too little?
Gordon,
I think its reframing how you look at the employer - employee relationship.
When I book a painter to decorate my house, I pay them an agreed fee in return for a pre agreed outcome by an agreed date and a certain standard. E.g nicely decorated bedroom, no damage and minimal disruption & inconvenience to me and the family - with the job completed by 4pm June 1st
I don’t care if they take 3 hour lunch breaks or work on another property at the same time as mine. Or if they need to work all day without a tea break. Their workload is of no interest to me provided they achieve the agreed results at the agreed time.
Of course, I need to do ensure I have agreed a competetive price and a realistic set of outcomes by reviewing the competition and market place.
Think about your employees in same fashion - as external consultants or free agents who you pay to complete a series of outcomes to a certain standard or by a certain time.
Instead of discussions around workloads the conversations with employees become more about outcomes, timeframes and resources they need to achieve those outcomes / results.
You both use your knowledge of your ‘internal market place’ (your company and department) to assess how realistic the outcomes and timeframes are. Then you try it and adapt as you go along.
Does that make sense?
(Sorry for he long winded reply!)
I really like the idea of a ROWE, and have championed similar ideas in many jobs.
I’d be interested to see some comments about how to address issues in entrepreneurial jobs. The problem to me is how to draw the line in the sand. Like many people, there is an endless list of extra things I could add to my basic job responsibilities that would make me even more effective at my job. So how do I determine when my job is ‘done’? What happens is that I seem to be always working, or thinking about work, even if I am at a movie at 3pm. While I like flexibility, to me the challenge is how to end up with some time that I’m NOT thinking about work.
I can’t wait to read the book!
Gordon - in a ROWE, employees and managers work together to get very clear on measurable goals and expectations. There is never a question about what needs to be done in order to meet or exceed expectations. It’s no longer the manager’s job to determine if the workload is too much or too little - it’s their job to set the outcomes that need to be achieved.
Conversations take place on a regular basis about how employees are tracking toward the completion of their goals. If an employee ever feels that they are overwhelmed or have taken on too much, that is part of the conversation. It is the manager’s job in a ROWE to be a coach and mentor to the employee, to remove roadblocks, and to pave the way for results to be achieved.
In our experience, employees rarely feel that the workload is too much because their capacity for taking on more work grows in a ROWE. Amazing what freedom and control over your time can do!
In some corporate workplace environments I have experience of, typically 50% of the major project workload could not be planned for during performance appraisals and goal setting sessions.
This is where a manager who can bring coaching and mentoring skills naturally into the “flux of work” can have a profound effect on helping his/her team deliver agreed results - and reduce the risk of apathy and burnout due to workload runaway.
regards
mark mcclure