Our Last Optional Meeting

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.