Impressed, I wanted to interview Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, the creators of this approach and authors of “Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It.” I’ll be posting one part of this interview through the week, with other articles. A Results Only Work Environment is a culturally different approach to work. I want to take the space to help you understand why this is different.

The first Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) was done at the corporate headquarters of Best Buy. This question to Cali and Jody is about transitioning a department to a Results Only Work Environment and how teams already working for results interact with those who have not transitioned to the program.

When setting up a ROWE environment, some teams are practicing ROWE and some scheduled in the future to do so. How did the teams handle the (wildly) different expectations about work when people on ROWE worked with people not on the program yet?

This “haves” and “have-not’s” landscape was actually set up intentionally.  We were attempting to orchestrate tension in the organization – and it worked.  We knew that it would take a very powerful force to overcome the inertia of the current work culture. 

We found that the force that worked was made up of jealousy, envy, and desire (all basic human traits! – Scot).  Teams that were ROWE were happier, healthier, and more productive – and they had complete control over how they spent their time.

Naturally, this caused non-ROWE teams to want those same things.  They started to rise up and question why they didn’t have ROWE.  The more questions management got, the more frustrated they became.  The straw that began to break the camel’s back was people stopped taking promotions that were on non-ROWE teams.  Non-ROWE teams started losing talent to ROWE teams.  And slowly but surely, ROWE overtook the culture.

As the ROWE shift was happening, it was very interesting to watch ROWE and non-ROWE teams work together.  The ROWE teams were intensely focused on results and they began behaving in very different ways. 

For example, they began questioning the meeting invites they were receiving from non-ROWE teams, asking what the outcome of the meeting was, and getting clarity on their roles.  In a ROWE, every meeting is optional.  Meetings still happen, but the people get to vote on which meetings will drive outcomes and which meetings won’t.  This was a big change for non-ROWE teams that were just used to inviting people and having them come, regardless of whether there was a clear outcome or even an outcome at all. 

ROWE teams also began asking questions to get very clear on what they were to deliver.  You could no longer say to a ROWE employee “Why don’t you get me that spreadsheet tomorrow?” ROWE employee would ask “What time do you need it tomorrow?”, “Would you like a soft copy or hard copy or both?”, “Should anyone else receive it?”, “Help me understand what you’ll be using the spreadsheet for.”

Non-ROWE teams were often surprised by these new behaviors, but because they drove higher productivity and created an environment where their peers were happier and healthier, the non-ROWE employees knew something was working.  The orchestrated tension led to the adoption of ROWE by more and more teams…until the culture became ROWE.

Cali and Jody put much thought on how to do this implementation. The approach described here is key.

Wouldn’t you love to question why YOU needed to attend a meeting? Wouldn’t you love to question the outcome of the meeting before the meeting? Wouldn’t you love to prepare for a meeting you tied to results instead of receiving the agenda 30-seconds in e-mail after the meeting starts? Wouldn’t it be great to question tasks given when it doesn’t match your goals?

With a ROWE, you can. What’s the least productive work you do to get to your results?

Scot

Related posts:

1. Why Work Sucks – The interview, part 3
2. Why Work Sucks – The interview, part 1
3. Why Work Sucks – The interview, part 5
4. Why Work Sucks – The interview, part 4
5. If management sucks, does your work still matter?