It’s time to give you the scoop on the other half of C&J.  Here are some fun facts you may not know about Cali:

1. Cali was born in Ecuador, South America.  They have the best bananas there, and she doesn’t even like bananas.  But they also grow the most beautiful roses, and roses are her favorite flower.
2. Cali is the oldest child in her family.
3. She has three kids, one dog (Smokey) and one husband (Marty).  Her kids are all boys, which gives us 5 boys between us!  Below, we have Keaton, Jackson, and Trystan in the first photo.  Keaton, 21 months and in the second photo, is devouring Why Work Sucks.  He says “Managers, I’m giving you 25 years to get on board with ROWE before I enter the workforce!”
4. Her dream (before college) was to be a professional dancer.  She started taking lessons when she was 2.5 years old and has been in many, many shows.
5. Cali interned with the Minneapolis Police Investigative Units and was on her way to a career in Criminal Justice before settling down at Best Buy.

So what happened when a violinist/swimmer and dancer/FBI wannabe got together to create ROWE?  Our next post will have details on the behind-the-scenes story… 

We love it when we get stories from the Why Work Sucks button, or when you share your points of view through blog comments or in e-mails to us.

And as we thought about it, we realized we’re asking you to share some personal stories about yourselves and your everyday lives with us…but you don’t know much about us at all.  Not fair, right?  We’re going to change that this week.

It’s time to get the inside scoop on Cali & Jody (and then we want to keep getting good Why Work Sucks stories and fun e-mails from you, okay?).  First up: Jody.  Here goes:

1. Jody can play the violin (she started when she was 8 years old). 
2. She owned her own fitness business for 5 years called National Fitness Association.
3. She has two kids, two cats and one husband.  From left to right in the first photo below, we have Colin (holding Rosie), Elliot (holding Stella), and Dave.  The cats had to be included - Jody is officially a cat lover.
4. Jody was a competitive swimmer.
5. Her favorite pastime is reading.  Jodi Picoult and Elizabeth Berg are her all-time favorite authors (she already has me hooked on Picoult!). 

 I’m compiling my list now.  Stay tuned for some fun facts about Jody’s other “other half”…

A must-read: Michael T. Kanazawa’s new manifesto People Don’t Hate Change, They Hate How You’re Trying to Change Them (go here to download the PDF). He tells the story of his “rude awakening” in corporate America (while, coincidentally, working down the hall from future Dilbert creator Scott Adams).

Kanazawa describes attending a meeting for a corporate change program that everyone knew was doomed for failure. He then puts a nice twist on the classic Dilbert moment:

I realized after a couple more of these programs that we weren’t in the land of Dilbert at all.
We were in the land of the Peanuts. People felt like Charlie Brown being baited by Lucy to take just one more run at the football to try and kick it. And, as we all know, running to kick that ball would always end up with Lucy pulling the ball away and poor Charlie Brown flat on his back. People had been fooled by these sugar-high programs that would spike up and be abandoned too many times. They were jaded about these corporate change programs, and rightfully so. So, as leaders, how do we break this cycle? What does it look like for companies that get it right and are able to turn their big ideas into big results?

When we read this paragraph, it was like we were back in grade school and the teacher had asked a question and we absolutely knew the answer. Pick me, Mr. Kanazawa! No, pick me!

In the years we spent helping transform Best Buy from a traditional work environment to a Results-Only Work Environment, we discovered four things that go toward starting to answer that last question:

Meaningful change can start in a corporate auditorium, but the real work is done by the people in their day-to-day jobs

Change doesn’t fit on a memo. Companies that try to pour new ideas into their employees’ heads are doomed to fail. Ideas can act as a catalyst, but people need the freedom (and the support) to bring those ideas to life. (And in their own individual way.) People will listen to what leadership says, but they’re much more interested in what leadership does. Model the desired end state and support, support, support. Otherwise, you’re just like Lucy.

Not everyone will change at the same time, or in exactly the same way

We use the word “migration” to describe the change from a traditional work environment to a ROWE. We chose this word because it implies a certain fluidity. Some people will arrive at the new state right away and with little prompting. Other people take more time. Still others never entirely adapt to the new change. The old command-and-control model assumed that an order given was an order taken. Adaptive change allows people to embrace new ideas at their own pace.

Real change requires a grieving process that is as unavoidable as it is necessary

You can never underestimate how hard it is for people to let go of old ideas, old behaviors, old beliefs. Even if the new reality is a better reality, it’s hard to adapt. Technologies we take for granted today (like e-mail) were hard for some people to embrace. To take this e-mail analogy a little further, we’re still struggling with the complications that e-mail creates. In other words, the process of change never entirely stops. So cut your people some slack, okay?