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?

1. Listen for Sludge

At first, you’ll hear the obvious Sludge. You’ll hear the nasty comment from a coworker (”How nice of you to join us today!”) and you’ll recognize it as Sludge. The longer and more intently you listen for Sludge, the more you’ll start to hear all of the subtle Sludge that is all around you.

For example, let’s say you promise to get somebody something “by close of business today.” Is that Sludge?

It is. It’s not as demoralizing as the nasty comment, but the idea of “close of business” does just as much work reinforcing the status quo.

How can you have “close of business” in a 24/7 global economy? And why are you assuming that the person you’re delivering the goods to will be “at work” at that time? And what if by turning it in at midnight you would do a better job? Shouldn’t that be on the table?

The point is that even if you feel like you understand Sludge now, there is always more you can learn. A big part of making ROWE the future is deepening your knowledge about what is holding us back now.

2. Stop Sludging

Just as you’ll get more sophisticated in hearing Sludge, you will start to hear nuances in your own language. As your knowledge of the ins and outs of the traditional work environment become more sophisticated, you can continue to work on eliminating Sludge from your own daily speech.

3. Be forgiving of other people’s Sludge

The culture is changing, but it’s not going to happen overnight. One of the great things about adopting a ROWE mindset is that it frees you from the stress and guilt of the traditional work environment.

The downside of having a ROWE mindset is that you might start hearing Sludge everywhere and all the time, and find yourself wishing that more people thought like you. Be patient. If people keep standing up for results, this change will come, even if everyone doesn’t arrive at exactly the same time.

Work sucks.  Or at least the way we work sucks.  Sometimes the best solace is griping over it at happy hour.

It’s good to rant about this stuff every once in awhile - and we’d like to rant with you!  Can we tag along, Twin Cities?  Of course we can’t hit every happy hour, but maybe we can crash yours.  

Tell us when your next happy hour is happening - date/time/place - and tell us why your gathering is the best one for us to crash.

Can’t wait to hear from you at caliandjody@caliandjody.com.

P.S. For now, we’ll be crashing Twin Cities’ happy hours.  Watch for future posts for when we’ll be in your city and we’ll drop by…

Our mouths pretty much dropped when a friend sent us a copy of a “Guide to Hiring Women” from a 1943 issue of Mass Transportation magazine. We thought it must be a hoax, but Snopes bore out that it’s oh so real. Here are some of our favorite moments:

“[P]ick young married women . . . they usually have more of a sense of responsibility; they’re less likely to be flirtatious.”

“[Husky] girls — those who are just a little on the heavy side — are more likely to be even-tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.”

“Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination — one covering female conditions.”

We offer this tidbit not out of a sense of superiority at how advanced and modern we are compared to the Neanderthals of yesterday, but out of a sense of hope. We offer this article because when we talk about a Results-Only Work Environment, there are people out there who immediately counter by saying, “Things will never change.”

Of course things change. What seemed like an impossibility in 1943 (women being treated like adult humans) is a given today.

(Before you write that “but things also stay the same” post in the comments, realize that we know that women still face discrimination and bias in the workplace. We’re not saying it’s a perfect world, just a better one.)

One of the reasons why ROWE works is because it is more in line with the business realities of the 24/7 global marketplace. ROWE is also more accommodating to employees’ “always on” lives. In forty years, the way we defend the traditional work environment is going to look as silly as that Mass Transportation article.

To all the doubters out there, we ask this:

Wouldn’t you rather have tomorrow today?

Oh - and we’ve picked a winner for the “Create Your Own ROWE Revolution” contest.  It’s Jeff with the following response to why he needs ROWE:

“Because please, for the love of God, I just want to do my damn job.”

‘Nuff said on that one - good enough reason for us.  Jeff’s boss will be receiving a copy of the book very soon…

We were joined on our virtual book tour yesterday by three amazing guests - Tim Ferriss, David Allen, and Melanie Benson Strick.

As always, there was passionate, engaging conversation about ROWE, the book, and the need to shift our paradigms about work.

The link to the streaming audio is here: http://www.snipurl.com/caliandjody3

The downloadable file can be found here: http://www.authorteleseminars.com/audio/whyworksucks3

And, for those of you that would like the audio from our previous calls (with the likes of Dan Pink, Michael Port, and Scott Stratten), click here: http://www.whyworksucksbooktour.com

Enjoy!

As gas hits $4/gallon in parts of the country, government officials, pundits and bloggers are talking about how to solve the problem of the increasingly expensive daily commute. So far we’ve seen:

Symbolic gestures

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s decides to start biking to work

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

U.S Representative Steven LaTourette proposes bill to reimburse commuters

Taking it to the, er, street

How to talk to your boss about changing company policy to offset commuting costs

The last item sort of makes sense, provided people don’t fall into the same trap they fall into when talking about traditional flexible work arrangements.

When people change to four ten-hour days for family reasons, they feel anxious about their career, judged by their coworkers, and distrusted by their boss. As long as work is a place you go, rather than something you do, then even if a four-day week saves on commuting costs, it doesn’t solve the foundational problem.

What we’d rather see is people having the power to decide (versus having it be mandated or guidelined to death) when and where they work, as long as the work gets done. In a Results-Only Work Environment, the culture respects that you have a life outside of work that has an impact on your ability (or your desire) to be physically present. Some people might not want to come into the office every day because they’d rather spend time with their kids. Some people might decide not to come into the office every day because it’s freakin’ expensive.

As long as the work gets done, who are we to judge?

Final note: check out this nifty calculator that lets you figure out whether or not you should move closer to work in order to save money on commuting costs. You’re supposed to fiddle with the cost-of-the-new-house variable and the distance variable, but we played with the number of commuting days a week. Moving closer to work can make a difference…but only driving to an official physical office space two or three days a week saves you BIG.

We hope you enjoy the first in our series of YouTube videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BNoqlsov7M

It’s time for another installment of our virtual book tour!

Our third teleseminar is on Tuesday, July 8th, and we can’t wait for you to join us.  The banter with the participants on the last two calls has been full of energy and passion for changing the way we think about, and do, work.

For more information and to register for this [FREE!] call on 7/8, go to: www.caliandjodybooktour.com.

As always, we are thrilled to be joined on the call by three guests - this time, it will be:

• Tim Ferriss, NY Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek
• David Allen, bestselling author of Getting Things Done and the upcoming book Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life (Dec. ‘08)
• Melanie Benson Strick, Million Dollar Business Coach, creator of Virtual Team Building Secrets

Can’t make the live call?  Register anyway, and you’ll gain access to the recording.

See you on Tuesday!