Cali and Jodi Blog

Ultimate Guide to Outcome Based Goal Setting [with Goal Setting Worksheet]

Fri, 23 May 2014 00:00:00 -0400

We often mistake projects or daily activities for "goals" when quarterly or yearly goal setting time comes around.

We're in workplaces where it's okay to meander through the work day, unclear about what we're being measured on and what we're supposed to be delivering. Workplaces where employees fill out their goal setting worksheets the week before performance appraisal time (or frantically review them to see what the hell you wrote six months ago).

We're in work environments where HR sends out email after email reminding us to complete our goal-setting worksheets, and we move that activity to the bottom of our list. The urgency to set measurable goals in a traditional work environment rarely exists because using time as a measure of loyalty, dedication and good work, in most cases, wins out over evaluation of the actual work.

Enter... Outcome-Based Goal Setting.

We wanted to share with you the steps we take our clients through when it comes to identifying goals and establishing measurable results. This article is from the goal setting portion of our Building a Performance-Based Work Culture ebook that you can download here. You can go through this step-by-step guide with your team and to make it even easier, we made this handy goal setting worksheet for you to download.

Outcome-based goal setting gets everyone aligned first, before you even begin to think about your individual goal. This way, creating measurable results is effective and achievable. This framework is outcome-based thinking, and generates an environment where performance is managed on a continuous basis. That means all the time, not just at the yearly performance review meeting.

Here are the 5 questions that everyone needs to be able to answer in order to be part of a dynamic performance-based organization:

1. What is the ultimate outcome?
2. Who is the ultimate customer?
3. What are we doing that is enabling the ultimate outcome?
4. What are we doing that’s not?
5. How will we measure success?

Ask yourself: does everyone on your team or in your organization know what ultimate outcome you are trying to achieve?

To adopt outcome-based thinking and position everyone to be accountable for driving measurable results, take your team through the following exercise.

TEAM EXERCISE
STEP 1: OUR ULTIMATE OUTCOME

Get the functional team together and work toward coming to consensus on the answer to the question:

What is our ultimate outcome as an organization? Why do we exist?

Have each person write down what they think it is on a piece of paper. Some will struggle to regurgitate the mission and others might remember the vision. All of the answers will likely be different – maybe extremely or slightly so, but they certainly won’t be 100% alike.

CHALLENGE:

Therein lies your first (and most critical) challenge: the outcome simply isn’t a part of your employees’ DNA. It’s not what makes people wake up in the morning raring to go... yet.

HOW TO GET TO THE ULTIMATE OUTCOME

Start with your mission statement. With the mission statement in front of everyone, ask: If we do this, then what? (The ultimate outcome needs to be simple and compelling. People will be proud to say it).

EXAMPLE:

Mission Statement: It is the mission of ABC Car Gadgets to provide personal vehicle owners and enthusiasts with the vehicle-related products and knowledge that fulfill their wants and needs at the right price. Our friendly, professional staff will help inspire, educate and problem solve for our customers.

That’s a great statement and, if true, the customer will be happy and the company will make money. However it’s quite a mouthful and not something you can easily spit out or rally around. Who gets up in the morning and says to themselves, “Today I’m going to provide personal vehicle owners and enthusiasts with the vehicle-related products and knowledge that fulfills their wants and needs at the right price... Hooray!”

Make it real by asking the question again “If we do this, then what?” Keep asking until the outcome is distilled to its simplest form.

ASK:

If we actually do what the mission states, then what?

DO:

Facilitate discussion to distill to its simplest form:

The customer will be happy, because they’ll have what they need to go places. The cars will work so people can get around.

We help people go places.

I help people go places.

Bingo!

Your ultimate outcome:
I (we) help people go places.

STEP 2: OUR ULTIMATE CUSTOMER

Once people are supporting the broader outcome – one they remember, that excites them – it’s time to figure out who the ultimate customer is.

And there is only one customer. Everyone else is a resource or tool to help you delight the ultimate customer.

CHALLENGE:

Often, you will hear people say “everyone is my customer” or “I have internal and external customers”. When you’re serving 14 different customers, the real customer becomes lost.

HOW TO GET TO THE ULTIMATE CUSTOMER:

First, identify who’s not the customer (Think of everyone who’s not the ultimate customer as a resource or tool that you can utilize to serve the ultimate customer).

EXAMPLE:

If you’re in Public Relations, you may say that the Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine or a particular journalist is your customer. But they’re not. They’re a resource that you tap to communicate to your ultimate customer – perhaps about your organization’s new product or efforts to ‘go green.’ In either case, you’re talking to the customer – and that’s not a journalist.

So who is your ultimate customer?

Everyone in the organization must agree on who this is so that employees direct all work activities towards delighting the one customer.

For ABC Car Gadgets, the ultimate customer is the shopper who buys parts and services – whether in their stores or on their website.

SAY:

If everyone we thought was our customer is now our resource, who is our ultimate customer?

CHALLENGE:

Some might say, “Well, that’s easy for a store clerk to figure out at ABC Car Gadgets. They come in direct contact with the customer every day. I’m in corporate Human Resources and spend my time serving what I thought were my corporate clients in the office every day. How do I affect the ‘ultimate customer’?”

This is what every person in every position of every department needs to figure out and connect to. Otherwise, your work activities might fit nicely into your S.M.A.R.T. goal; but for the most part, they’ll be irrelevant.

EXAMPLE:

The Human Resources employee is responsible for corporate culture, retaining and attracting talent, management coaching and the like. If they do their job well, then the resources (employees) have the right foundation to do their jobs well, and this, in turn, filters down to the ultimate customer. If they don’t do their jobs well, then engagement, morale and productivity suffer and, in turn, these declines affect – you guessed it – the ultimate customer.

DO:

Have each person trace how their role affects the ultimate customer. This will be a critical piece in defining measurable goals that achieve results against the ultimate outcome.

STEP 3: IDENTIFY ACTIVITIES THAT ENABLE THE OUTCOME & ACTIVITIES THAT DON’T

Once people are supporting the broader outcome – one they remember, that excites them – it’s time to figure out who the ultimate customer is.

And there is only one customer. Everyone else is a resource or tool to help you delight the ultimate customer.

CHALLENGE:

Now comes each person’s task: to figure out what they do on a daily basis that enables the ultimate outcome, and in turn, serves the customer. It’s equally critical for them to figure out what they do that doesn’t contribute to this at all. You’ll mostly discover that there is a lot of wasted time – really, a lot.

DO:

Have each person work with their functional team to figure out which activities are specifically helping them drive toward the ultimate outcome and which activities are getting in the way (i.e.,wasting time like unproductive meetings).

WHOSE JOB IS IT TO SET GOALS?

Setting results (you may have referred to your results as ‘goals’ in the past) is not solely the job of management.

DO:

• Take everyone through the team exercise in this guide

• Have each employee look at their current goals

• Run each (current) goal through the outcome-based thinking filter

• Toss goals that are ‘rules’-based and irrelevant

• Toss goals that sound like a job description

• Toss anything that isn’t measurable

• Re-write goals that include activities and specific measures that you can defend (they affect the ultimate outcome and customer)

• Take your new goals to your manager for discussion/feedback/coaching

IMPORTANT:

How you get to your results is an activity. You are in charge of the activities to get to your results. Management’s role is to help employees when they get stuck and guide them if they may be going off course. Management knocks obstacles out of the way, and acts as a coach and support mechanism as employees work toward achieving the measurable results both parties have agreed upon.

UTILIZING YOUR CURRENT PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Continue to use your organization’s performance management system to track and ensure the results employees are driving toward are measurable and focused on affecting the ultimate outcome. Avoid getting bogged down by listing specific activities.

Employees who utilize outcome-based goal setting have 3-4 goals that are spot on and achievable.

Activities can and will change on a daily basis as you reject activities that are a waste of time (i.e., commuting to the office to be physically present when physical presence is not necessary to you achieving measurable results, or attending a meeting that you know will not help you achieve your results), and refine activities that make sense and more effectively help you achieve results.

In a performance-based work culture, results are fluid and flexible. Revisit agreed upon results as often as you feel necessary. Do not let an agreed upon result hold you hostage if it no longer makes sense.

Re-write it. Tweak it until it makes sense. Visit with your manager to get buy-in and support.

So, what are your goal-setting challenges? Would this kind of goal-setting method work for your team? Give it a try and share your thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear about it!

To Work Weekends or Not? is NOT the question

Wed, 14 May 2014 00:00:00 -0400

Laura Vanderkam recently wrote an article entitled "Is Working On Weekends the Secret to a Successful, Happy Work-Life Balance?"

We like to think that working on weekends leads to a person’s demise. Who in their right mind attributes happy work-life balance to working on the weekends? Not us. <end sarcasm>

Don’t get us wrong, we’re all for work-life balance. In fact, that’s one of the biggest reasons we created ROWE in the first place.

Oftentimes, in the corporate world workers live for the weekend. We instead argue that they should live their lives as they want to live it, not on their company’s proposed calendar.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll likely say it 2,573 more times (because it’s that necessary!), why worry about the days and times that your people are working? Managers need to let them do their jobs and worry instead about the results. It’s a win-win for everyone involved, really.

When are managers going to get it through their thick skulls that it’s NOT up to organizations to manage people’s work-life balance? That is sooo 1950s, people. Let’s fast forward into the new millennium, one with nearly Jetsons-like technology that allows workers to perform their duties digitally. We can (er...NEED) to be done with work dominating our lives.

It’s up to organizations to manage performance. Period. People can manage their own lives, thank you very much. And if they can’t, for whatever reason, then companies need to re-examine who they’re hiring. There are about 3 trillion resumes online of people who would be happy to take their jobs, I’m sure.

To work on the weekends or not should NOT be the question. It should instead be a question of getting your work done on time and achieving your goals...because we believe that is what really matters at the end of the day, not when you do it.

Introducing an employee handbook your people will actually read!

Tue, 06 May 2014 00:00:00 -0400

"Hey, Steve, I was wondering if I could borrow your copy of the Employee Manual? I heard it was a real page turner!"

.... said no one, ever.

Until now, that is. We've had many requests over the years from managers asking for a new kind of employee handbook for Results-Only Work Environment companies.

We have listened and finally come up with one that we think you'll like. Presenting the ROWE-Approved Employee Handbook: A 21st century guide to workplace culture for small business. Clear. Concise. Crap free.

This is a handbook that new employees will read. Sometimes it's hard to explain ROWE culture to new employees. This handbook is meant as an overview of your company culture. It does not have an exhaustive rambling of Human Resources policies and procedures (aka: ‘the rules’).

The assumption is that people who work for you are professional adults and this manual treats them as such. It also includes Federal Labor Guidelines and how you operate within them.

This handbook can be put to work in your organization immediately, or used as a template that you can customize to fit your needs.

We hope you'll check it out and let us know what you think!

How do I encourage team collaboration in a ROWE?

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 00:00:00 -0400

"Nothing beats face time!"

"Aren't you lonely if you don't go into an office every day?"

"How can you possibly collaborate as a team if you don't see each other?"

These are some of the struggles people have when they first hear about Results-Only Work Environment. It's one of the myths that get perpetuated about ROWE, but there's also a nugget of truth here. People do sometimes struggle with communication and collaboration in a ROWE. It's just the nature of learning to work in a new way.

Our friend and software company mangager, Matt Rogish, had some great advice recently in our ROWE Online Support Community when this question came up:

"The goal is to use as many asynchronous, non-interrupting communication methods as possible. Chat, Pivotal, Basecamp, etc. are all things you can safely minimize and ignore if you're 'In the Zone'," says Matt.

This post is for anyone out there who is in a ROWE or part of a virtual team. We've put together a list of some productive collaboration tools and advice for working with a results-only mindset.

Project Management

Basecamp - for basic project management, discussions, etc.

Pivotal Tracker - passive information radiator so everyone in the company can log in and see what just got done - very fine grained

Trello - for bigger statuses, such as "Product XYZ 50% completed"

Chat or Video

Campfire - for realtime chat rooms. You can set up chat rooms for different departments if you have a larger company.

Skype - for dedicated IM and voice/video communication. This interrupting, non-passive channel is usually just for emergencies, or "I really need to know right now" type communication. But it can also be a great way to just reach out to people on the team and have a quick talk, if you're feeling disconnected.

Google+ Hangouts - Easy to record a hangout for someone who missed it and it posts right to your YouTube channel (and you can make the video private or hidden, if necessary).

File sharing

Google Docs - for collaborative document editing.

Dropbox - for anything that isn't a Google doc, also a great all-purpose file storage and backup.

Social, information sharing

Yammer - this tool is basically Facebook for work. Employees can post ideas, send kudos, and take polls on their own private social network. It's a nice alternative to sending "all staff" emails that just get lost in the shuffle.

Performance management

Work Simple - social performance platform based on actual work and social goals that happen throughout the workday. Employees can recognize each other's achievements and performance conversations happen all the time.

We didn't even mention phone, text, or email. Some people have gone as far as to not even use phone for team collaboration, and to put limits on emails, as well.

How do you collaborate in a ROWE? How do you streamline communication for productivity and efficiency? We'd love to hear your ideas!

Photo Credit: khalid Albaih via Compfight cc

How do you measure accountability in a Results-Only Work Environment?

Tue, 25 Mar 2014 00:00:00 -0400

Giving your employees the freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want as long as the work gets done does not equate to a no rules free for all. We are, after all, focused on results and employees must be held accountable for their results. So, how do you measure those results and hold employees and teams accountable?

One thing we hear often is "If your employees aren't in the office from 8-5, how do you know they're working?" And our response is always the same: "Well, how do you know they're working now?"

We polled some of experienced managers in the ROWE Online Support Community and asked:

How do you measure accountability in a Results-Only Work Environment?

Omi Diaz Cooper, President of Diaz Cooper Advertising:

Here are some ways we measure accountability:

1. Deadlines met.
2. Projects adhering to expected standards
3. Client acceptance rate of projects
4. Number of mistakes/revisions
5. Project adhering to allotted budget
6. Profitability rates per department
7. # Client Referrals (Net Promoter score)
8. Peer Reviews
9. Performance against Position KPIs

Costs and profitability

Many get concerned about how to track costs and profitability for projects if you do not track when and where employees are working.

The answer for many is simple.

"You can work where you want, and when you want. You still have to keep track of how much time [spent on the project]." says Ross Wright, President of FrogSlayer.

Janelle Riley, President of Syvantis Technologies agrees.

"On Fixed Price contracts (where the client does not need to see hours) we still track time. This is the only way that we can accurately report financial results because we recognize revenue on a percentage of completion basis. However, this doesn't tie anyone down. Our staff still manage their own projects, their own time, and their own client relationships. They just happen to show their time on their calendars."

Diaz Cooper Advertising does it a bit differently.

"Under ROWE, you can still track hours per specific project, as long as employees know their compensation is not tied to those hours. (It doesn't matter when or where they do it, as long as they get it done within the project allotted hours.)" says Diaz Cooper.

Build a performance-driven work culture

It doesn't really matter if you are in a traditional work environment, or if you're in a ROWE, you still have to have measurable results and way to hold employees accountable for work. Start building a performance-driven work culture by changing the way you set goals, as a company and as individuals. Employee's goals and outcomes should always satisfying the ultimate customer and the ultimate outcome for your organization. .

How does your company measure accountability, whether in a ROWE or a more traditional work environment?

Photo Credit: Sinéad McKeown via Compfight cc

The dark side of not knowing how to set measurable goals

Tue, 18 Mar 2014 00:00:00 -0400

You rarely hear this frantic question in a traditional work environment.

"What is everyone doing?!"

It's assumed that everyone is hard at work doing...well, something. If you show up at 8:00 am and stay until 5:00 pm, you've met expectations, right?

When you stop using time as a measure of performance, everyone starts scrambling because the majority of people don't know what "the work" is supposed to be.

We're in workplaces where it's okay to meander through the work day, unclear about what you're being measured on and what you're supposed to be delivering. Workplaces where employees set their goals the week before performance appraisal time (don't deny it--we've all been there!).

We're in work environments where HR sends out email after email reminding us to complete our goal-setting activities, and we move that activity to the bottom of our list. The urgency to set measurable goals in a traditional work environment rarely exists because using time as a measure of loyalty, dedication and good work, in most cases, wins out over evaluation of the actual work.

Or, if we want to tell it like it is, this is how we really feel about goals:

image credit: dilbert.com

Until we own our own time and have complete control over how we spend it, goal setting will be just another useless activity that fills our time in the work environment. And, a workforce with clear, measurable goals for each and every person will never happen. Ever.

This is a real-life example:

Pre-ROWE Manager: "We've been working on this strategy for awhile, and I really want you to crack the nut this year."

Employee: "Got it. I'll do my best." ["I have no idea what you're asking for, but if I show up every day, stay late, and come to you next year with something that I think you might like, I should be okay."]

Post-ROWE Manager: "We've been working on this strategy for awhile, and I really want you to crack the nut this year."

Employee: "Great, let's define 'the nut'. How will we know if I've cracked it? How will it be measured? What's 'meets expectations' and 'exceeds expectations' on cracking the nut?" ["If I can get clear on how to exceed expectations on cracking this nut, I can figure out the activities that will get me there and also plan how I'll volunteer at my child's school, coach her basketball team, and take a vacation to Miami."]

Our bet is that most of you have great goal setting tools at your organizations, but people aren't actually using them. Or, you use them, and then file the completed activity away--and three months later, you scratch you head and say, "Where did I put that completed goal setting guide?"

Goal setting is not an activity. Goal setting is not an action on a quarterly checklist. Getting clear on what your employees are getting paid to do, and how to measure it is, and should be, status quo. It should be the way business is done. We can't tell you how many times we've heard, "If I let my people control their own time, how will I know if they're working and what they're supposed to be doing?" to which we exclaim, "How do you know NOW?"

If you knew your team was going to go through Results-Only Work Environment training within the next three months, would you feel clear enough about your goals and expectations to be comfortable? If you're a manager, would you be comfortable that each and every one of your employees knows exactly what their expectations are and that each expectation is measurable? We've got a really clear, really simple method for outcome-based goal setting, with a handy template to get you started. Check it out and let us know what you think!

image credit: s_falkow

How to make work-life balance a priority for your business

Sat, 15 Feb 2014 00:00:00 -0500

Culture is an important element in your company's success. It might even be THE most important thing that determines success or failure. Culture plays a huge part in attracting great talent, retaining your best people, motivating and inspiring people to do their best work, and in turn, attracting customers and ensuring growth.

Your employees' health, job satisfaction, and productivity depend on how your prioritize work-life balance in your company culture. We believe there's more to it than creating a new policy or program overnight. So, how do you do it? Where do you start and what are companies doing now to make sure work-life balance is a priority?

Lead by example

Leadership must maintain healthy work-life balance and model this for the entire organization. Josh Menelsohn, partner at Hattery, wrote about this topic recently on WSJ.com,

A company’s founders are its first leaders. They establish the tone, and by default the culture of the organization. As a founder, the values you expect to be present in your team must start with you. My partners and I work to maintain a healthy work-life balance so that our team will strive to do the same. Sometimes that means taking a two week vacation — and sometimes it means taking a 2:30 a.m. international Skype call en route. By necessity, company culture all starts with strong leadership.

Two schools of thought

There are two ways companies think about making work-life balance a priority for their corporate culture.

1. Encourage employees to bring their lives to work

There's been a trend for companies to offer on-site amenities like laundry and dry-cleaning, food services, workout facilities, child-care. The idea is to create a village (of sorts) so you don't have to leave the office or campus to take care of personal things in your life. Bring your life to work!

2. Give employees the freedom to choose

We believe the first option may be attractive to employees at first glance, but is not a sustainable business model. First of all, a company that says, "Here is everything you need so you never have to leave us!" is a little creepy when you think about it. Secondly and more importantly, a small business can't realistically offer those things because of the expense and time it takes to maintain those services. The good news is, you don't have to.

The second school of thought on work-life balance says, "We give you your time and the freedom to work where and when is best for you." Wait, is it really that simple?

Best work-life balance companies

Companies whose employees rate them as the best for work-life balance include Nestle Purina Petcare Company, SAS Institute, and Facebook. What are they doing to make work-life balance a priority?

Nestlé Purina Petcare Company - you can bring your dog into the office (Fido loves this option!)
SAS Institute - on-site child care, a heathcare center, and a fitness center
Facebook - tons of on-site amenities
MITRE - flexible schedules

You might have noticed these are large companies. How is a small business going to compete with all that? On-site amenities are really expensive and have to be maintained for the long haul.

The answer for small businesses, and any size-organization for that matter, is to go beyond flexibility, telework, or a village of services.

Here's what one HR expert has to say about aggressively prioritizing work-life balance:

"The more liberal companies can be with letting people pick their own schedule times, letting them work from home, letting them—especially people who travel a lot—have no established schedules, letting people leverage technology to work from anywhere—the more companies aggressively offer those things, the higher their retention" says Dick Finnegan, a former human-resources director and CEO of C-Suite Analytics, which helps companies decrease employee turnover.

There is no work-life program or flexible schedule that is more comprehensive than a Results-Only Work Environment. In a ROWE, employees can do whatever they want whenever they want, as long as the work gets done.

Improve productivity and boost employee satisfaction: Stop managing Paid Time Off!

Fri, 14 Feb 2014 00:00:00 -0500

As companies struggle to keep pace with changing norms in the work environment, one idea keeps floating around.

Paid time off (PTO) should be a benefit for all employees.

Yes! Shouldn't Americans be getting more paid time off? That sounds awesome, right?

Actually, no. It doesn't sound awesome or very innovative to me.

PTO has the allure of something progressive, much the same way flexibility and telework had some appeal 25 years ago. But it is anything but progressive. In fact, it is a step backwards from the true potential of a Results-Only Work Environment.

I dare you to read the stats from this paid time off study and NOT feel depressed:

The Benefits USA 2011/2012 survey results found 33.3 percent of companies offered paid time-off for a death in the family. Employees are granted an average of 3.4 days.

Thirty-three percent of companies offer employees paid time-off for jury duty, while 17.2 percent of organizations offer paid days for military leave. Employees receive paid time for maternity leave, paternity leave or adoption leave at a rate of 8.6 percent. Paid time-off is offered for family illness at 5.1 percent of companies surveyed.

First of all, a very small percentage of companies are offering PTO. Secondly, it makes me wonder how many people in this country have to beg and plead for a "Get out of jail free" card from work when they are sick, need to go to a funeral, serving jury duty, or caring for family members.

You might be thinking "Aren't you contradicting yourself, Cali? Shouldn't you be advocating that MORE people receive this benefit and get a federally mandated number of paid days off so they can take care of life without financial repercussions?"

No, I'm not advocating that, and I'll tell you why.

Because I know that there is a better way. It's a way that I've been advocating and implementing for years, and it will lead to improved productivity, a boost in employee job satisfaction. Best of all, it is the way that this generation is already working and will demand to work from now on.

Here it is:

Give people control over their own time, all of it.

We're so focused on managing people that we forget about managing the work. And that's what we need to do to get results -- focus on the work!

PTO is an endless spiral down into micro-managing people's time and physical presence. It wastes resources and zaps motivation.

Now, why would I advocate for that when I want to give employees back all of their time to manage work, life, and everything in between?

5 tips for how to manage employees in a ROWE

Thu, 13 Feb 2014 00:00:00 -0500

This question came in our ROWE Online Support Community the other day, and it's one we get asked frequently: How do I manage a small team in a ROWE? Here's the question from Alex, and the community's response, plus some extra tips. We hope it helps some of you who may be wondering the same thing.

I'm asking myself how we can handle ROWE in our little team of 18 co-workers. There are some positions we don't have any backup for. We've got the possibilities to bridge this positions for holidays now, but in ROWE we must be able to do that all the time. We just calculated that we need to hire 2-3 new people to cover each position with a backup. And even then there'll be nobody who knows everything.

Is ROWE only meant for bigger companies or how do you handle this problem?

Before we dive into the details, we want to say ROWE is ideal for small teams and many, many small businesses have been using ROWE for years with great success.

1. Cross-training for critial roles

Homer Bartlett, a ROSC member, offers this helpful piece of advice:

A helpful question to ask is "How critical is this role and how often is it performed?" For example, technical support for clients may need at least 2 people available during a set time of day or 24/7, depending on your client's expectations. Multiple people would need to perform that role (primarily) and if nearly the entire team is cross-trained on that role, they can pinch hit when needed. If something is less time-sensitive, like strategic consulting, then that role might largely be performed by one person, but with another person capable of stepping in when needed.

If every role in your team is critical all the time, then for the sake of business continuity, irrespective of ROWE, you probably want to consider cross-training to ensure all roles can be performed in the event of unforeseen circumstances, as they do tend to happen from time to time.

2. The team schedules themselves

This next tip comes from our good friend, Ronnie Wooten. She's President/COO of Suntell, a software company, and they've been ROWE for a few years now.

We are a team of 17 people, including 2 executives and 2 sales staff. So that leaves basically 13 staff members to handle product development/QA and client services. When we transitioned to ROWE, we had 21 people. Our client base has increased by 40%, yet we are able to handle this increase in sales/service with fewer people because of ROWE!

For some positions, we have VERY little bench strength, so it's important that if that person needs or wants to go off the grid, they need to communicate that fact with the remainder of the team so that people are not left hanging during that time. So long as everyone knows what to expect in terms of communication and response times, we have not had any problems with this approach. We DO share calendars, and we are very open about when we are and are not available because we are such a small group. This approach works well for us.

3. Get rid of unnecessary activities

ROWE teams tend to run more efficiently and have higher productivity than traditional work environments, because all unnecessary activities get axed. Ronnie goes on to say this about her team:

Ask the staff today to outline for you everything they do - every single task - every step. Then have the entire group sit down and start asking hard questions regarding the benefit of each process, task and step. If there is NO benefit, axe it immediately. Find new ways to reach results, and you'll find the increased efficiency will allow the staff to take on more work without feeling more burdened. Let the STAFF make these decisions. Get rid of all tasks that were created by management to fill time.

4. Don't "staff up," work smart instead

Janelle Riley didn't need to add more employees to her small business in order to go ROWE. She figured out ways to automate and allowed her team to manage their own time and coverage:

We are a team of 10 employees and there are certain technical skills that can only be covered by one person. We have not staffed up to be ROWE. However, a key concept behind ROWE is that you can work anywhere, anytime as long as the work gets done. In the case of key technical staff, the "work" that needs to get done includes availability to address technical issues as they arise. Each employee is responsible for making sure that their skill set is covered when they are not available. They do a great job of accomplishing this on their own. It is not something that I have to "manage."

We also run a data center that needs to be monitored 24X7. Our software monitors the hosting operations and notifies the engineer on call when there is an issue that needs to be resolved. This works very well.

5. Hire slow, fire fast

We LOVE what Homer B. has to say about how his team is involved in staffing decisions, and how their firing practice needed to evolve with ROWE:

The critical aspect we didn't think about at the outset was hiring and firing. We already had a great hiring process, and our culture and benefits naturally attract lots of qualified applicants. Pushing the "Is this person working out?" decisions down to the team seemed like it would be tricky but as with everything else, treating people like responsible adults seems to consistently inspire them to rise to the occasion. But if you don't already have a "hire slow and fire fast" mentality, you will probably want to adopt it.

These are just a few real-life examples of how to manage a small team in a ROWE. What are your questions or ideas to add to the list? Please share in the comments, we'd love to hear your thoughts!

Open letter to the President and First Lady

Thu, 30 Jan 2014 11:30:00 -0500

Dear Mr. President and First Lady,

Kelly was upset…no, she was more than upset. In fact, she had cried four out of five mornings every week for the last month. She just didn’t feel she was able to spend enough time with her 8-year-old son. She was performing well at her job but was being forced to put in more and more time if she wanted to move up the ladder, which she needed to do in order to make enough money to pay her rent and put food on the table for herself and her son. He was starting to feel her stress and had begun asking why he rarely saw her.

This is the story of one American citizen trying to work within the old, outmoded, out to lunch current workplace policies. You couldn’t have been more on point in your recent State of the Union address when you remarked that “it’s time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a ‘Mad Men’ episode.” We are 100% with you. And who are we, you might ask yourselves? We’re women. We’re mothers. We have six children between us ranging in age from 4 to 29 years old. And, like most mothers and fathers, we were caught in a trap 10 years ago. The trap of working for a command and control Fortune 100 company that strictly enforced the kind of "Mad Men" policies you want to see changed.

Instead of waiting for the problem to be fixed for us so we could be the employees we knew we could be and the mothers we so desperately wanted to be, we took a stand. A stand against the American work culture that isn’t focused on results when determining women’s pay. A stand against a work culture that is igniting higher and higher levels of anxiety and depression among workers all over the country. A stand against the lie we’re all living under: Time + Physical Presence = Results.

We committed to working from the inside out to change the culture we were part of (while changing diapers, weathering every childhood sickness imaginable, living through horrendous morning sickness, nurturing kids through the teenage years, ensuring the college search was successful, AND doing our jobs). We did it, and we survived. We successfully shifted a corporate culture from command and control to autonomy and accountability. Productivity skyrocketed, employee turnover plummeted, and Kelly from the story at the beginning of this letter? She remained a top performer and gained control over her life. Instead of needing to put in more time to get the promotion she wanted, she was rewarded for her results.

We’ve seen thousands of lives change for the better, not to mention organizations’ bottom lines, as they’ve become focused on results and nothing else…not whether an employee has a child, not whether there is an aging parent to care for, and not whether someone is better at playing office politics than someone else. This same shift has occurred in manufacturing settings, within education systems, within government agencies, and in direct healthcare settings. Now that we’ve seen with our own eyes that it is actually possible to change culture, we’ve made it our mission to ensure every worker is judged on their results and nothing else. Period. Having seen what can happen has set us on a course to ensure that each and every person is treated as an adult with respect and dignity in the workplace.

Because this, Mr. President and First Lady, is where the problem begins. Equal pay for equal work is a nice to dream to talk about and rally around, but we believe it’s sadly unachievable within the current system. As things stand right now, both men and women are playing a game to earn equal pay for equal effort. In today’s work culture, we define ‘work’ as effort, and we define ‘effort’ as showing up to a physical or virtual place and putting in time. Under that lens, this country’s fundamental belief is that women cannot possibly put in as much time (and therefore effort that, in reality, may or may or not produce results) as men…especially when they become mothers or caregivers. As both of you know, many men experience the consequences of this perception as well when they become fathers or caregivers themselves.

We can keep fighting for equal pay, because it’s the right of every American, but it will be futile unless we change the conversation. What we’re looking for, when all is said and done, is equal pay for equal RESULTS. When women find themselves being forced to go “part-time” and reduce their pay (and potentially lose their health benefits if they were part of the equation to begin with) because they want to spend more time with their children or start a family, they too often find themselves being held accountable for producing the same results as they were before. This, Mr. President and First Lady, is the core reality of the ‘equal pay for equal work’ conundrum. Equal work is being performed but is marginalized because of our cultural equivalence of ‘work’ to ‘time’. When women try to orchestrate fulfilling lives as mothers (or, in our estimation, when anyone tries to do this), they are slapped in the face with the question “Why don’t you just go part-time?” Translation: “Why don’t you just take less pay (less than what you already deserve) to do the same work, and then shut up about your needs?” When the conversation shifts to equal pay for equal RESULTS, there will be no subjective opening to continue this ‘Mad Men’ practice of holding women underfoot when it comes to compensation. And, it’s our belief that changing the conversation will open a host of doors for workplaces to jump into this century.

As you so rightfully stated, women and men should be able to have children and care for them without experiencing setbacks caused by 20th century policies and mandates. It’s our fear that we’ll spend another 20 years rewriting policy that will continue to shackle workers to the time clock, reinforcing child-like complacency instead of promoting adult-driven competence. We must change the conversation:

From “How many days has your child been sick?” to “Have you achieved your results?”
From “We can’t approve any further flexibility to your schedule” to “Here is what we’ve agreed you will deliver – you are an adult and I trust it will happen.”
From “You don’t have any more sick days” to “The deadline for the deliverable is X”.
From “How many hours did you work last week?” to “Did we achieve our customer satisfaction target?”
From “Are you leaving early again today?” to “Are we on track to meet customer expectations?”

2014 can and should be a year of action. We can afford nothing less.

Oh – and Kelly’s son? Guess what he wants to be when he grows up now that she is leading a fulfilling life? A mom.

Let’s change the conversation together.

Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson
Co-Authors, Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It
Co-Creators, Results-Only Work Environment

3 things you can do to enhance your employee satisfaction survey

Mon, 13 Jan 2014 13:30:00 -0500

Alright everyone, it's employee engagement survey time! Let's set the stage...

One Week Before Survey

“Managers that I’ve never talked with start walking around asking how we’re doing.”
“I start getting smiles from managers that usually ignore me.”
“My manager appears interested in me for the first time in a year.”

One Day Before Survey:

“We have donuts at the morning meeting.”
“Leadership has lunch ordered for us and tells us how happy they are to have such a great team.”
“At 3pm, our managers tell us to take the rest of the afternoon off because we deserve it.”

One Day After Survey:

“Managers completely ignore me.”
“No one is smiling.”
“When I ask to leave at 3pm for my son’s soccer game, I’m told that if I’m not sick, I need to get back to work.”

Sound familiar? Surveys can be a useful tool to gathering feedback, but the obvious point illustrated above is that engagement begins with the day-to-day culture of the company. Giving lip-service to employee engagement by conducting an ineffective annual survey is just a waste of time.

One of the things we've learned over the years is the importance of truly listening to your employees. It can be difficult in larger organizations to systematically gather real, usable data from your workforce.

A few of our clients have taken their employee satisfaction surveys to new levels and we wanted to share some of the secrets of their success with all of you.

1. Ditch the annual opinion polls

If you're only asking your employees what they think on a yearly basis, you're missing a huge opportunity. First of all, what can you do to improve employee engagement when you only hear from your team every 12 months? What happens during the rest of the year? Increase the frequency of your surveys to at least quarterly, and make it as easy as possible for your team members to complete the survey. Online survey tools like Survey Monkey make it simple to collect and analyze data.

2. Ask pointed questions about productivity, time management, accountability, and engagement.

Don't just skim the surface here. After all, you're using this data to take meaningful action to improve employee engagement. Dig deeper into actual work habits, productivity and satisfaction. Group your questions into sections about employees' health & wellness, productivity, time management, engagement and satisfaction, and corporate culture.

3. Make a plan and make real changes

After data is collected, use the information to conduct a talent review, looking at all the survey results together including individual functional results. Find areas of opportunity and areas of success from the data and from employee comments. Next, formulate action plans and tweak the talent plan on a quarterly–rather than yearly–basis.

With this system, employee data is guaranteed to be more current and actionable, because employees will know that they are heard. This process allows you to be more agile and responsive in the planning process. Because of the constant access to fresh data, leadership can address needs like additional training for managers and allocation of resources more swiftly than ever before.

We want to know your favorite employee satisfaction survey questions that get you the best results. Share in the comments!

When it sucks to be you: a lesson in conducting employee surveys

Mon, 06 Jan 2014 09:00:00 -0500

At a large manufacturing company in the mid-west struggling to make a profit and compete for the best talent, an employee relations manager presented a report to top executives.

Based on a validated employee survey with a 90 percent response rate, her executive summary identified three major issues:

Uncaring Supervisors: Supervisors did not particularly care for employees as people but only what they could do for the company,
Poor Communication: While employees were expected to keep supervisors informed of issues upstream, very little communication flowed downstream, and
Lack of Trust: Employees overwhelmingly did not trust company leaders.

Although the employee relations manager provided overwhelming evidence supporting her conclusions, the president acted surprised and found the results hard to believe. Angered by the results and turning red in the face, the president quickly asked his direct reports sitting around the boardroom table if they agreed with the results.

None of them dared to speak up. That was the end of the meeting.

Project Was Over Before it Started

Although the employee relations manager may have had support from a number of executives, none of them had the guts to speak their opinion and support the report’s findings. Without support from the top, a project like this is over before it starts.

Deeply disappointed with the time and energy focused on this project, the employee relations manager placed the report in the DOA File. The project was dead on arrival because the president was not open to change, regardless of the validated research from the collective voice of employees. With the president’s inflated ego and no executive brave enough to debate the issue, his opinion was the only opinion that mattered.

Consequently, the employee relations manager was terminated for insubordination a few months later.

The Moral of This Tragic Story

If you are going to spend the time, money and resources to conduct an employee survey, make absolutely sure the president and his key leaders support the initiative. Otherwise, you will have wasted your time and created an expectation among employees that changes will be made based upon the results. Then it will suck to be you.

Seven Steps to a Successful Employee Survey

Let’s discuss how to conduct a successful employee survey that provides useful, actionable data while helping you avoid public embarrassment or a jobectomy. A portion of the information below was inspired by “Leading a Successful Employee Survey” by North Star Consulting Group.

Priority: Make this project an organizational priority. Successful surveys are launched with the full support of your company’s key leaders. Executives should also show support throughout the entire project.
Champion: A senior executive outside of your HR group should be appointed survey champion. The survey champion is the face of the project and serves to further reinforce the project’s importance to employees. Human resources supports the key leader and manages the day-to-day administration.
Anonymity: You must guarantee 100% anonymity. Otherwise, employees will not be open and honest for fear of retaliation. Use an outside web-survey provider where data is stored on their server.
Participation: To obtain statistically relevant data, a company needs a participation rate of 60% or higher, depending on the size of the firm. The higher the participation the better.
Action: Employees need to be convinced that leaders will take action after receiving the survey results, and that these actions will shape the future of the company.
Communication: Leaders must share information throughout the project and provide a summary of results to employees after the survey is completed. While communication styles differ with each company, you may consider intranet video updates, blogs, email, posters, etc.
Celebrate: Take time to celebrate the successes of the survey. Publicly recognize departments with the highest participation rates, extraordinary improvements. Make the celebration fun; provide food, door prizes, etc. Your senior executives should personally thank group leaders who achieved exceptional targets.

Kevin Kennemer, MA, SPHR, is writer of the Chief People Officer Blog, and a Great Workplace Advocate with a passion to help CEO’s and CHRO’s in creating workplaces where employees are treated with trust, respect and dignity. Based on extensive research, Kevin knows that regionally and nationally recognized Best Places to Work designated companies benefit from much higher financial returns and employee engagement. Read more about Kevin and his mission at www.about.me/kevinkennemer.

NFL Coaches: 100-hour Work Weeks and Results

Thu, 02 Jan 2014 08:00:00 -0500

With the Super Bowl just around the corner and the playoffs decided, I'm reminded of a few articles I read over the last several weeks that talked about the number of hours that NFL coaches are putting in. For many, this begs the question, "How many hours are too many?" and Tim Sackett started that conversation over on his blog. For us, it begs only one question: "What are the results?"

Awhile back, Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh agreed to log his schedule, every minute of the day, so we could get a look into how he spends his time. After all, 100-hour weeks must be the ticket to winning the Super Bowl. Or not. Harbaugh's Ravens bit the big one this past weekend and will not even see a playoff game.

(click the image to see our full comic strip)

Do more hours equal better results? Get the conversation going in the comments below.

Yahoo's Latest Blunder

Wed, 18 Dec 2013 08:00:00 -0500

Yahoo is on our naughty list this year, and yes, now they’re at it again: this time, forcing managers to rank employees on a bell curve, then fire those at the low end. We know what Santa is thinking - they haven't learned their lesson yet.

The company hasn't responded with a comment about this practice...and we're not surprised! They're probably hoping the Yahoos won't notice that the foundation for it is a crock of...well, not tasty white chicken chili, that's for sure.

Before long (if it hasn't started already) employees of Yahoo are likely going to start the lovely infighting that occurs when perceptions outweigh actual results. A glimpse into the chatter that might be heard around the Yahoo water coolers:

Employee A: What do you wanna bet that Oswald is sitting pretty at the top of the bell curve with rankings?

Employee B: Of course he is. He’s the first one here in the morning. He starts the coffee. He smirks at everyone who comes in after him. He gets the pat on the head from Marissa, when she's even here, because he turned on the lights. I'll just give him a pail of brown paint for Christmas to slap on his nose every morning.

Employee A: Yeah, and poor Peggy. Can you say bottom of the heap? She’s great at her job, but you know they don’t like it that she has to leave early to pick up her son ever since her divorce.

Just like that - if something looks or feels awry about how you're working (or not working - no one really knows), you get your assigned place on the curve. And poof - you have a job or don't have a job. Not based on what you're actually producing, but on the kind of game you're playing (or not playing). Employees in this type of environment are always guessing who they need to suck up to or what they need to do to raise their street cred in the office instead of getting their work done...or better yet, finding out what the work even is.

This is on the heels of the announcement just a few months ago that declared all Yahoos must be “on deck”. Sigh. Here's hoping Santa has some common sense in his sack to deliver to those who need it...

This ROWE Testimonial From Glenn Will Make You Smile

Wed, 04 Dec 2013 00:00:00 -0500

We absolutely love ROWE stories from employees, managers, and families. While we've gotten a lot of them over the years, we've never received one quite like this.

This Results-Only Work Environment story is from Glenn. He's pretty special because he's a dog. Linda's dog, to be exact. Here's what Glenn has to say about ROWE:

Dear Mr. _____:

I hear that you're having a meeting about ROWE and if you don't mind, I'd like to tell you what I think about the ROWE work environment. Even though I don't understand a thing about it, it works for me.

I have heard her say that she likes it that she doesn't have a long commute every day now and that is saves her money on gasoline. (That also helps the environment). The time she saves on commuting, she can spend with me.

Because she can help the customers from home, she can work with much less noice and distractions.

Because she can achieve her results and work from home sometimes, it means that we go on more walks and if she's home, she can comfort me during those awful thunderstorms.

Because I have a tendency to chew socks, pens, pencils, etc., I am housed in my training crate on days when she goes to [the office]. (That is very boring). When she's home, I can be out of the crate sleeping or protecting her from the "bad guys."

Because she can speak with customers from home, she doesn't have to drive during hurricanes, snow storms, or ice storms.

I thought you'd like my perspective of ROWE, even though I'm not an employee, I'm Linda's dog.

Thank you for ROWE.

Glenn

We kind of fell in love with Glenn after reading this note. The picture above is merely a placeholder because we don't have an actual photo...yet. We really hope that Linda sends us a picture of the little guy if she reads this blog post!

UPDATE: Linda DID send us a photo of her pup ...so we've updated the image at the top with the real Glenn. Isn't he sweet?

What would your pet say about ROWE if he/she could talk? Leave a comment!

Goldman Sachs New 'Saturday Rule' is Beyond Ridiculous

Mon, 18 Nov 2013 13:20:00 -0500

What happens when Wall Street tries to give “flexibility” to their overworked employees?

Something so ridiculous and astonishing, you’ll wonder if it’s straight out of the front page of The Onion.

Something taken right from our speaking engagements when we give examples of the crazy things employers do to avoid getting clear about actual results.

Last week Goldman Sachs announced a new “Saturday Rule” for junior bankers. The rule goes something like this:

Get your ass out of the office by 9pm Friday night and don’t come back until 9am Sunday. Anyone caught working on Saturday, or assigning work that is due on Saturday, will be punished.

The actual policy and list of rules goes on, but that is the gist of it. The rules were put in place by the “junior banker taskforce” to help relieve some of the stress that comes with putting in the 100-hour work weeks that are typical of Wall Street firms.

A few more juicy highlights from this madness:

Employees will be monitored for sneaky remote logins (so if I want to get some things done on a Saturday while my kids nap to have some time to spend with them on Monday afternoon, I’m screwed)
All analysts will be expected to take a mandatory 3 weeks of vacation a year, and it WILL BE TRACKED! (and if people don’t take the mandatory vacation time, they are so important and so busy that not even a rule can help them. Such dedication.)
Exceptions will not be the norm and should be used sparingly (uh, how sparingly?)
All analysts, including new first year analysts, are expected to take time off (preferably one week) before the end of the year in an effort to focus on work-life balance (because work-life balance can only live during one week out of the year, don’t you know. It can’t ever be something we trust employees to figure out day to day for themselves while we at Goldman Sachs focus on defining results and managing performance.)

This, everyone, is how much “flexibility” Goldman Sachs is giving their employees now.

Flexibility to work and not work exactly when they say so.

Flexibility to know that they’ll be punished if they touch anything work-related on a Saturday, even if that’s the most productive and efficient time to get things done.

“You’d better be working on your work-life balance during this week, Mr. Junior Banker!” says your boss with the crack of a whip. “I expect 100-hour weeks for the next two months, so get your work-life balance in NOW.”

When a strict command and control culture tries to loosen the reins a bit, but they don’t want to address real issues surrounding corporate workplace culture, this is what happens: A long list of rules and more control under the guise of Flexibility.

Not surprisingly, the employees are wondering if this rule is actually for real.

From New York Magazine:

"...A week in, the rules seem to have created more questions than relaxation. Several current and former banking analysts said they weren't sure if the new weekends-off rules were meant to be taken seriously, or if they were just a publicity stunt that would be ignored in practice. They also have questions about how the rules will be enforced. Will those who obey the rules and take Saturdays off be punished when it comes time to pick bonuses and promotions? Will senior bankers just stuff a weekend's worth of work into Sundays?" [my emphasis]

Employees don’t trust it. They still think (because they’re programmed to think this way) that if they do follow this rule and stop working on Saturdays, maybe just maybe they’ll get punished for it come bonus and promotion time.

This is what happens when “putting in your time” is still the most valuable currency in the workplace. And when, instead of getting clear on what actually needs to be achieved and managing that, an organization feels the need to figure out your life for you.

Tip for Goldman Sachs: Forget the Saturday Rule. Establish clear goals with objective measures and open the door for your employees to figure out how, when, and where to achieve them. Manage their performance, not how often you see them, how often they take vacation, or how many hours they’re working - you’d be surprised how a 100% autonomous and 100% accountable environment naturally creates the work-life balance you’re (allegedly) trying to foster. It’s not your job to manage lives; it’s your job to manage results.

So...what do you all think of this new rule at Goldman Sachs? Start the conversation in the comments below!

ROWE is the Center of Groundbreaking Research

Tue, 29 Oct 2013 08:00:00 -0400

October is National Work and Family Month. It’s a time specifically set aside for employers to think about family-friendly policies and work-life benefits. To those of you that don't have control over your time or freedom to approach work in the most productive and efficient ways, this may seem like an oxymoron right out of the gate. But to those of you familiar with ROWE, you’re likely nodding your heads and saying a prayer of gratitude that you know firsthand that these two CAN actually co-exist.

Today and tomorrow, at the SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) Workflex Conference in San Francisco, a toolkit is being unveiled with incredible resources to help you implement some of these practices.

The principles the toolkit program are based on aren’t new, necessarily. (We’ve been around forever, or so it seems!) What IS new is that our research team developed and tested a highly-innovative intervention to reduce the conflict between work and family. And it’s being rolled out right here at the tail end of National Work and Family Month.

So, where did this come from?

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recognize that work can have an impact on health and well-being. But to what extent? To answer this question, they brought many research disciplines together to study how to improve the health and well-being of workers and their families. This research is providing scientific evidence about how work-family conflict can affect people’s sleep, energy levels, blood pressure, and exercise habits. It can even affect parents' relationships with their children.

Our journey with this landmark project began back in 2004. Jody and I were approached by two sociologists about studying ROWE as a 'pure workplace intervention' as part of the project they were part of with the NIH and Centers for Diseas Control and Prevention. The study rigorously followed ROWE teams and control groups for two years. The results were amazing and were shared with the heads of the project at the NIH and CDC.

In 2008, with the support of the NIH and CDC, we joined the Work, Family and Health Network on a multi-site randomized controlled trial of an intervention called STAR (Support. Transform. Achieve. Results.) to change the work environment. ROWE was at the center of the intervention, along with supervisor support elements that had been tested in their own study during the time ROWE was being studied between 2004 and 2006. STAR was delivered in two very different work environments: to over 1,000 information technology professionals, and to more than 700 hourly service workers in 15 long-term health care facilities.

Throughout the development of STAR, we worked very closely with the Work, Family and Health Network as the creators of ROWE to ensure that the essence of it stayed alive as STAR came to life.

STAR was born

It didn’t just stay alive, but thrived! Between 2008-2010, we implemented STAR in two real companies: for 1,000 in information technology and 700 hourly workers in the extended care industry. Extensive measurements were taken, evaluating effects on health (blood pressure, sleep, and mental health), on families (stress levels of spouses and kids) and on business (productivity and ROI).

For complete results, click here. Suffice it to say, the results were astounding! And, really, we knew they would be since they were based on the principles of ROWE.

ROWE vs STAR

So what’s the difference between ROWE and STAR? ROWE is the foundation of STAR, and it goes beyond just flexibility. As you all know, a ROWE is a true balance of autonomy and accountability and is the basis for becoming very clear about outcome-based goals and measures, and then opening to door for employees to achieve those goals in the most productive, efficient ways possible.

Since we embarked on the study activities and creation of STAR, we have further refined the ROWE process by adding new elements based on our vast experiences working with organizations around the globe.

The Work, Family and Health Network has been heads-down analyzing the research from the STAR intervention, writing papers, and creating an easily accessible toolkit for organizations that want to implement STAR. As an integral part of this entire process, we are thrilled to launch these toolkits!

Want even more proof?

In addition to the NIH and CDC research validating that a ROWE foundation is a solid move for organizations to be making, here’s what our clients are saying:

"Once we looked at all the metrics, reorganized, and gave complete autonomy and accountability to our employees, productivity began to show significant improvements. People can be very creative when you show them the results they need to achieve." -Dennis Malecek, CEO Dynatronix

Click here to download the case study.

"For the business, ROWE creates incredible motivation to innovate. What we're challenging people to do is focus exclusively on value not effort, which pays us back huge dividends in the business, not to mention employees' personal lives." -Eric Severson, SVP HR, Gap Inc.

Click here to download the case study.

We are so proud to have been part of the team that created STAR and the materials that are now easily accessible to employers around the world. We sincerely hope that organizations take advantage of these easy-to-use tools. CultureRx looks forward to providing support to organizations that are interested in pursuing an environment that is equal amounts autonomy and accountability. For more information, go to gorowe.com.

Promote Yourself: Author Dan Schawbel Talks About His New Book

Tue, 03 Sep 2013 00:00:00 -0400

"You need to promote yourself to have a successful career." Many of us have probably heard this a few times, but probably don't know how to actually do it very well! After all, promoting ourselves sometimes feels weird. But now with the Internet, social media, and the non-stop pace of 24/7 business, the ability to brand and promote yourself effectively has become absolutely essential. It's important to be on the same page with your manager about the results you need to achieve and be able to utilize your talents to reach them. Helping your manager understand your talents is also an important part of the equation.

So, how do you get started with this branding and promotion of yourself?

Our friend Dan Schawbel wrote a book to answer that exact question. It's called Promote Yourself: The New Rules For Career Success. And it's coming out TODAY! We had the good fortune to ask him about the book and what he's learned about how to promote yourself, career management, workplace culture ...and of course we wanted to know his thoughts about ROWE!

Cali & Jody: So, Dan, the new book is out today. Congratulations!

Dan: Thanks! Yes, we're celebrating with a launch event on Sept 10 and everyone is invited. (click here for the invite to the Webcast) We'll be launching from New York City, and web-casting the live event. We have Ken Bouyer opening up the event and then a really dynamic panel after the keynote.

Cali & Jody: Sounds like a great event! Let's talk about some of the ideas you present in the book. What would you say is your main message to anyone developing a career right now?

Dan: Don't rely on anyone or anything; be accountable for your career and take charge of your own life. Life is too unpredictable to be overconfident with your employment situation. Your company could get merged with another company or acquired tomorrow and you could get laid off at a moment's notice. These external factors are outside of your control but you do have control over how you manage your career. Think of a career as a string of experiences tied together and collect as many as you can because it will make you more interesting and more valuable. If you sit around and wait for opportunities, you are going to be very disappointed. The top professionals are the ones that work hard and are persistent with all of their endeavors.

Cali & Jody: Absolutely. We're all about being accountable for our work as well as our careers. What are your thoughts about workplace flexibility?

Dan: We will wake up in two to five years and almost every company will offer some type of workplace flexibility program. Millennials want to work from home and if companies don't support that, then they will lose the battle for talent to their competitors who have those programs. Workplace flexibility isn't just important to millennials - all employees would love to have it. The focus shouldn't be on where and when you do your work, but on the results from projects. If you are delivering above and beyond what you're asked to do and it's benefiting the company, who cares how many hours you spend! We are heading into 2014 and with all the new technology that allows us to work from home, so why can't we? Furthermore, the Harvard Business Review and Gallup have found that employees are more productive when they work from home.

Cali & Jody: We agree completely about the focus not being on where and when. What is your opinion on ROWE and why do you think Yahoo! and Best Buy bailed on it?

Dan: I've always believed in ROWE and frequently mention your work since I believe companies should adopt it. Both Yahoo! and Best Buy made it public that all employees would have to commute to work every day with no exceptions. I believe that this is a short-term strategy because there was a change in leadership at both companies and they had to get everyone on the same page. They weren't doing well financially and got new CEOs so they had to align their organization and that was their solution. In the long term, they won't be able to get the best talent if they have these policies so you will see a shift back to ROWE (we hope!).

Cali & Jody: Based on your new book, what are managers looking for when promoting at work?

Dan: I did a research study in partnership with American Express for the book and we found that managers are looking for soft skills over hard ones when promoting. They want employees to have strong teamwork skills, be able to prioritize work and have a positive attitude. You need to get along with other people, support them and give credit where it's due because often, you have to work in a team on projects to accomplish organizational goals. You need to prioritize work because you're given so many tasks and you need to know what to do and when to do it. You need a positive attitude so people will be drawn to working with you.

Cali & Jody: What do you think the future of work will look like when millennials are running corporations?

Dan: The future of work will be completely different. People will be working from home, from co-working spaces and from smaller offices. Workers will choose to be at companies where their friends are and companies will have to focus on making a societal impact, not just money. Promotions and titles won't matter because there will be a flat hierarchy. Social networks won't be blocked at work but rather embraced and be part of a company's DNA. Companies will partner with local and national non-profits to work together to better the world.

Dan Schawbel is a Gen Y career and workplace expert, the Founder of Millennial Branding and the author of the new book, Promote Yourself: The New Rules For Career Success (St. Martin's Press).

Voting is happening now! Send #ROWE to SXSW

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 00:00:00 -0400

“For that’s still what makes South By Southwest Interactive an indispensable gathering of the minds – that this isn’t just a place focused on individual inventors or celebrities but on societal advancements. One impressive pitch here can be the starting point for a process/product that will change the way we communicate, vote, volunteer, and live our daily lives.” -- TIME, March 12, 2013

SXSW Interactive voting is happening now through September 6! And guess what? We have not just one, but two opportunities to send ROWE advocates to the 2014 event. Those two fantastic people are Seth Berkowitz from Edmunds.com (one of our clients) and Katrina Alcorn, author of Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink whom we recently interviewed here.

Click Here to Vote for Seth!

Click Here to Vote for Katrina!

About SXSW Interactive

Right about now you might be asking, "Why should I care about this?" Good question. Let's get a little more familiar with the event we're talking about.

SXSW began in the '80s as a local music festival and has grown into the premiere launching pad for new music, film, ideas and innovation. In 1994 the music festival aded a component for film and other media named SXSW Film and Multimedia Conference, which was later split into two separate events. In 1999, the SXSW Multimedia event was renamed SXSW Interactive.

Last year (2013) SXSW Interactive saw a huge jump in registration, now with 30,621 paying attendees. This was over three times the number that had attended in 2008 (9,000), just five years previously. The keynote talk for 2013 SXSW Interactive was given by SpaceX CEO and inventor extraordinaire Elon Musk.

Voting

In 2007 the festival directors decided to let the community submit proposals online for solo presentations, panels, book readings, and more. Over the years, many of the most compelling presentations at SXSW have come directly from community submitted proposals, like Seth's and Katrina's. We want to encourage these kinds of discussions about ROWE wherever they might happen, and a huge festival about ideas and culture seems like a great fit for this.

The Presentations

Innovation and the Work/Life Balance - Seth Berkowitz, Edmunds.com

How can teams innovate while colleagues maintain odd office hours to avoid horrendous commutes, duck out early for kids' baseball games and are perhaps most focused on their jobs working on a laptop in pajamas when the rest of the family has gone to bed? Workplaces are fighting for good talent and can’t be competitive without providing a work/life balance, but how does that jibe with the need to create a team dynamic that generates effective innovation? Edmunds.com hasn't completely cracked this impossible case, but has instituted some pretty inspired policies and practices to make sure that its ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment) culture is ripe with the level of innovation that has established its web site as the leader within the very competitive automotive Internet space. Edmunds.com President and COO Seth Berkowitz will share best practices and unexpected learnings that the medium-sized company has had supporting innovation during the growing pains of its "teenage years."

Click Here to Vote for Seth!

Maxed Out! A Creative Director's Memoir - Katrina Alcorn

The author, a former creative director for a leading interaction design agency, will give a short reading from her book, "MAXED OUT: American Moms on the Brink," (Seal Press, Sept. 2013), then lead a short discussion about women, creative professionals, and work/life balance. About the book—MAXED OUT tells a deeply personal story about “having it all,” failing miserably, and what comes after. Along the way, Alcorn weaves in surprising research about the dysfunction between our work and home lives, and the consequences to women’s health. Mothers are breadwinners in two-thirds of American families, and yet, as Alcorn explains, the American workplace is uniquely hostile to the needs of parents. Ultimately, she offers readers a vision for a healthier, happier, and more productive way to work and live (this is where ROWE comes in!).

Click Here to Vote for Katrina!

Our community of ROWE advocates is a supportive bunch (we know this firsthand!); that's why we're asking you to place your own votes and spread to your networks so they can place theirs (before September 6)! We're excited to see what happens and we hope to see both Katrina and Seth at South by Southwest in 2014.

Author of "Maxed Out" talks to us about why American moms are on the brink

Mon, 26 Aug 2013 00:00:00 -0400

A few months ago, we received a note from a longtime friend, Joan Blades (co-founder of MomsRising) introducing us to Katrina Alcorn. Joan thought we might support each others’ work, and it turns out that yes, supporting each others’ work was indeed a no brainer. I learned about the book Katrina was writing – Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink – and it definitely sounded intriguing. After all, I’m an American Mom and before ROWE, I definitely would have described myself as being on the brink of many things…insanity being one of them.

When I received my advance copy of the book, I was itching to get into it…but being the mom of four that I am, I don’t really have a lot of peace and quiet (or heck, even just quiet!) to read. I saved the book for a road trip we took from Minneapolis to Kansas City two weeks ago and I can safely say I devoured every word and finished the book before we reached our destination (okay, there were a few “Mom, are we there yet?” interruptions).

Maxed Out is the story of Katrina’s trip to the brink – of trying to be a mother and an ideal employee within a culture of work that is completely broken. A culture that rewards time, physical presence, and selling your soul. She almost didn’t make it back. Her story is both harrowing an

d inspiring, and it reminded me so much of my own experiences of trying to be a mother and an employee in our American work culture before we created ROWE. It was impossible. And not because I was weak, or lacked ability or resilience – but because I was trying to make it all work inside a culture that was never going to reward what really mattered.

Maxed Out is a book that will make you look around and think “Who else is experiencing this? Who else is on the brink that I don’t know about?” More importantly, it’s a book that will force action…because if action doesn’t occur to change this broken work culture we have around us, there will be women (and men) who will reach the brink and not be lucky enough to make it back.

We had the pleasure of posing some questions to Katrina about her new book, some pieces that really had us cheering (her take on the whole “Lean In” hot topic), and her life today:

Cali & Jody: In your own words, tell our readers what Maxed Out is about.

Katrina: Maxed Out is the memoir of my complete and utter failure to balance a demanding full-time job and motherhood. Throughout my story, I weave in the stories of my friends’ mishaps to balance work and family, as well as some pretty shocking research about the dysfunction between our work and home lives.

So it’s a very personal story, but I think of it more as a social or cultural critique. My hope is that the book will raise awareness about how society needs to “lean in” (to borrow an over-used phrase) to the reality of today’s families.

Cali & Jody: It’s a deeply personal story that takes a lot of guts to share. Tell us about your decision to open this door and let the world into your experiences like this.

Katrina: Thank you. Yes, the truth is, when I first started writing the book, I worried A LOT about what people would think about me when they read it. As you said, I’m exposing some really personal stuff—about my panic attacks, the tension in my marriage when my husband and I were both working too much, my wild experience with medication, etc. But I felt it was important to write it, because all too often, we skate along the surface of this “work/life balance” issue. I wanted to expose the real guts of it—what it really looks like when you’re trying to do something that is supposed to be the new normal (two parents with full-time jobs), but turns out to be just about impossible for many of us.

Luckily, it took four years to finish the book and get a publisher, so I’ve had a lot of time to get used to the idea of sharing this story. And so far, my former coworkers and clients have been incredibly encouraging when they hear about the book; many of them have confessed that they, too, have had similar experiences. Whether they have kids or not, so many people are grappling with job burnout, but everyone is afraid to talk about it openly. I think when people hear about the book, they feel relieved to know they’re not the only one.

Cali & Jody: At one point in the book, you talk about hoping to extend your four-day workweek indefinitely at the company you were working for. That hope was squashed, however, when co-workers became jealous and started spewing what we call Sludge – judging your choices about how you spent your time. How prevalent do you think Sludge is in today’s work environments?

Katrina: First of all, I love that you have a name for it: Sludge. That’s the perfect word, because after you have a Sludge encounter, it makes you want to take a shower.

It’s funny because in my case, I really liked and respected most of the people I worked with, and for the most part, I think they liked and respected me. And yet, I felt this judgment on a pretty regular basis, but I didn’t know what to call it.

As for how prevalent it is in other companies? I’ve worked as a consultant to literally dozens of companies, from Fortune 500s to startups and non-profits, and each work culture is different, but in many places, Sludge is so thick people are drowning in it.

Cali & Jody: We love how you give another point of view on Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean in” advice. One of our favorite parts of Maxed Out is where you state:

"If there’s one thing we need to do to make room for more women in leadership, it’s not telling them to “keep their foot on the gas pedal.” For many of us, that’s the surest way to drive ourselves over the cliff. And it perpetuates the widely held belief that women are the source of their own problems, that if we’re not getting ahead in our careers, it’s our own damn fault. We’re just not trying hard enough! Likewise, if we’re overwhelmed with the competing demands on our time, that’s our fault, too; we’re simply not managing our time well!"

Completely agree. What should women be thinking about instead?

Katrina: Women need permission to push back, which some would argue is the opposite of “leaning in.” If you define “lean in” as work harder, and generally give more of your time and energy to work, then my argument is no, we need to think about how to give our time and energy to being whole people. This does not have to be incompatible with a high-powered career, but it may mean shaking things up, breaking the rules, doing it your own way. It means challenging the idea that you can never unplug, never take extended time off, never work less. This is, by the way, what appeals to me so much about ROWE. It’s this idea that you don’t check your humanity at the door when you come to work. You’re encouraged to fit work into your life, rather than the other way around.

Cali & Jody: In a perfect world, what will readers of Maxed Out be thinking and/or doing after they finish the book?

Katrina: My hope is that Maxed Out will help us all change the conversation about women and work. We are obsessed with women’s personal choices—opt out, lean in, etc.—and I want us to talk more about the structural issues that are holding us back. I wrote the book for women, but the truth is, I’m hoping that men and employers and policymakers will ultimately be influenced by the ideas in this book.

At the end of the book, I list 10 things every reader can do; they’re all easy things, and each one is meant to take a baby step toward change, whether it be change at the policy level, change in workplace culture, change in the way men and women communicate at home, or change in our own hearts about how we value our own time and emotional energy.

Cali & Jody: And finally, I’m sure readers will want to know how you’re doing personally and professionally these days…can you give us a snippet?

Katrina: I feel very lucky that I’ve had the option to work for myself. After I left “Dogstar,” (the job I talk about in the book), and after I spent a year basically recovering from burnout, I started working as an independent consultant. I found I can be incredibly productive in less time because I have autonomy now.

It’s not that it’s always easy—I often work nights and weekends when I’m on a deadline, but I can also take time off in the middle of the “work day” to ride my bike in the Berkeley hills, or pick up my kids early from summer camp, or get groceries while the store is empty. Everything gets done, but it’s much less stressful than when I had that job and the commute. My kids are doing really well, all three of them. Our home is a more peaceful place. And of course, with the book coming out, I feel like I’m growing creatively in a way I never could have in my “fast track” career.

Katrina Alcorn is a writer and an experience design consultant. She holds a master's degree in journalism and documentary filmmaking from UC Berkeley, and is a regular blogger at WorkingMomsBreak.com and for The Huffington Post. Buy her new book Maxed Out: American Mom's on the Brink right here.

World of Business Leadership Webinar with Jody Thompson [Recording]

Tue, 06 Aug 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Jody Thompson was a feature presenter at the World of Business Leadership Summit in June 2013. We have the webinar presentation here, with transcript below. Enjoy!

[intro music]

Bob Acton: Hello everybody. This is Bob Acton. Welcome to the World Business of Leadership Summit for our last session of the day. We've had three today which is quite a bit. I'm really excited about having Jody Thompson here to speak to us today about Results-Only Work Environment, a business platform for the 21st century work force.

She's got some exciting ideas about how we should be working in our organizations, that are pretty different than any organizations are existing with these days. I'm super excited about hearing what she's got to say. I hope you guys are too.

Just a couple of housekeeping things. We've got everybody's microphone turned off just because we would like to have a more comfortable listening environment for everybody. That said, we are really interested in your questions and ideas, and so if you could ask some questions through your question box on your "Go To Webinar" page there, we'll answer those questions probably at the end of the session.

We'll be recording the event and placing up the recording on your membership site so that you can access this material at any time. We also have a book store this year and so the bookstore has Jody and Cali's books up there. Check it out. There's some awesome books for you to gather some real in-depth information about these concepts.

Let me just take a second and introduce Jody. She and Cali Ressler are the founders of Culture RX. They are the creators of the Results Only Work Environment. Their first book, "Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It" was named the year's best book on Work Life Balance by "Business Week." Their second book, "Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It," which just came out earlier this year, is the field guide for managing in a results only work environment.

They've been featured on the covers of "Business Week," "Workforce Management" magazine, "HR Magazine," the "Hybrid Mom" magazine as well as in "The New York Times," "Time Magazine," "USA Today," and on "Good Morning America" and "CNN."

Jody is a nationally recognized keynote speaker, and has presented to numerous Fortune 500 companies and prominent trade associations. She also consults to organizations worldwide about how to implement many of these ideas to individual organizations.

If you are interested at all in talking with Jody later after the session today, Jody will have some information about how to contact her. You can see her Twitter account right there on the screen right now.

Jody, welcome to the World Business Leadership Summit.

Jody Thompson: Thanks Bob. I am very excited to be here. I can't wait to talk to the audience today about why work sucks, and how we as leaders and managers can really start changing the game, and how we think about work, and how work is going to play out in the future. Not just in the United States, but all over the globe. We are seeing a lot of change happening, and I'm excited to be part of this summit so that we can talk about it with leaders across the globe and managers, too.

Thanks for mentioning the books. Here they are from the screen. "Why Work Sucks" is the manifesto of a results only work environment. It talks about how it started, how it was born, what it really means, and why it's a game changer.

We realize that managers have such a big job today, really trying to manage so many things in terms of the business and people. We wanted there to be a field guide that managers could utilize to help them think through things differently in terms of how we communicate today, and how we manage and move work differently than we did say back in the 1950s.

I want to start out with really talking to you guys about why any of this really matters. Here's why I think it matters. It's 2013 as we all know, and the workplace is still operating in so many ways like it's 1952. I'm going to tell you a story in a minute, and I think it's going to resonate with some of you about how we all feel on a daily basis about how things are working today.

Management and people practices are sadly outdated. We're doing some of the things very well, but other things are throw backs to the last century, and they're not really working well today, especially with the new generation coming into the work force.

Standard flexible works programs are a big trap. It's time to change the conversation and stop talking about flexibility and flip that to something that's contemporary, which is results.

Business profitability and growth is being optimized. We're seeing this everywhere, but there's so much more capacity, so much more energy and ideas that could come out of the workforce if we look at it in a different way and manage differently. Reward structures aren't relevant. What people want today is different than they wanted 20, 30 years ago.

Organizations like yours, want to track and retain the best talent. We know today, there is a challenge still out there that everybody is going after and each one of us hope to create that "promised land" so that they come to our organization. What is that going to look like? Obviously, we want to thrive well into the twenty-first century. Let me tell you my story and why I am here today and itching to talk to you.

A while back, in 2003, I was living in Minnesota. If any of you are living in an area where it snows, you'll know what I'm talking about. I was not a manager at that time and I was an individual contributor.

I was at my house in the morning and I lived about thirty minutes from the corporate campus. I got up and I looked outside and sure enough we were having the start of a major blizzard. I thought to myself "Oh, going to be really dangerous driving in, what should I do"?

I started to feel really uncomfortable. Maybe I should call in sick? No, that's not a good idea. If I call in sick, you know that is not going to look good. Everybody is going to know I'm lying. Then I started to think "Gee, now I want to get a promotion someday. I'm going to really have to get in there because I have to look like one of the most dedicated people."

As all of this is going through my mind, I was not at all thinking about the work that needed to get done. Only thinking about how I was going manage the situation to look good and I wasn't the only one. I got out in traffic and it took me about two hours to get to the office.

Now the blizzard was going to go on all day and they were predicting up to two-feet of snow. Nobody should have been out on the road. I got to the corporate office. I was so dismayed because so many people had gotten there before me. In fact, I was stuck in the, what we called "loser lot".

The "loser lot" was the parking lot that was kind of way out there that the people that came in the latest, they were in that lot. They had to do the "walk of shame" when they got in the building. Well, I trudged through the snow, by this time it was up to my knees.

[laughter] I get into the building and I just feel awful. I walk to my cube and everybody is standing around wondering when the CEO is going to send out "the" email. We all know what email is right? It's when is he going to let us go home.

For the next two and a half hours, everybody was running around waiting for that email to come out. Nobody was working. Everybody was concerned about kids getting out of school. What is going to happen with the traffic? Everybody was stressed out. Again, nobody is thinking about the work.

Sure enough about one o'clock in the afternoon, we get the email that we are going to be able to leave at a certain time. Now I think what happened is all the CEOs in the whole area got on the phone together and decided what time that was going to be.

When I finally left the office, it took me three hours to go one mile. Imagine the stress, frustration, anger. I finally did get home about six o'clock at night. I pretty much spent the whole day trying to get home in a blizzard.

The rest of the week was very unproductive there for everybody at the company. People were very upset about the whole situation. Even though we were allowed to leave early, the whole point is that we have no control over our time and are unable to do the work in the way that makes sense.

This is what my partner Cali Ressler and I figured out when we were in a Fortune 100 company. We looked at those kind of things and we said, "People are not focused on what matters". The way that work is setup is not good for business or for people and we realized that the answer wasn't flexibility.

Let's talk about that for a minute. Flexibility is a trap. I know organizations today are trying to move into this century. They are trying to change the game and be innovative. Flexible work schedules are nothing new. The first thing that's a trap is that it's limited. So if I'm on a flexible schedule or I am allowed to leave early or come in later or maybe stay home on Fridays, all of a sudden something comes into my life where I have to make a change.

Think about for me, if that day that the blizzard happened wasn't my telework day, well then what am I going to do? I'm going to have to call up and ask permission to change my schedule. So flexibility is permission-based.

It really sets up that paternalistic structure of work where I feel like the child, and I'm asking permission to do things in a different way or work in a different way. Flexible schedule is an oxymoron.

The second thing that we found out that happens is it's never going to be fair. You may have run into this yourself. So if one person asks for at-home on a Friday, then everybody else wants that same thing.

"Why did she get it? Why didn't I get it?" No matter how you try to move it around, make it fair and give people what they want, it never ends up being fair.

If I decide that new people, for example, new employees, can't be flexible, and only people that have been there over three years can, I set up a hostile work environment.

The third issue of flexibility is that it can be considered -- in people's minds and in actual practice -- career suicide. If I decide that I'm going to change my schedule to fit better with my life, I may be looked at as not as dedicated, not ready for that promotion, not somebody that's putting my priorities in the right place.

And even though people might say, well of course you need to put your family first, when it comes to promotion time, it doesn't play out well.

The other thing that we learned is because of the way that work is set up today and the way that we need to do it in terms of flexibility - we learned about this toxic force that's in every single work environment all over the world. That force is called sludge.

Sludge is any language people use to judge how other people are spending their time. It's not the language of results, it's the language that I feel I'm not getting something somebody else is having. It sets up that environment where people are always feeling resentful or guilty.

It's things like this: "Boy, those smokers get a lot of breaks, don't they? I wish I could stand outside 10 times a day smoking a cigarette. The rest of us have to be in here working."

Or, "how does Bob get a promotion? He's never even here. At our company we need to show up at six in the morning and stay till at least seven at night to look like we're dedicated enough for a promotion. And then he got one? I don't get it."

It's really a sludge generator when you're thinking about work in terms of time. "How come Mary gets to work from home? She just started here."

"Home-based workers just aren't as connected as the rest of us. I wish I could prance around with a company-purchased mobile phone and laptop. Those people will catch up all the best excuses to get out of working."

It's just not fair. We all know that in our hearts, but it's something that we're trying to do that just never feels right. And as we put these programs in place we go from that to creating programs for labeling the type of workers people are.

I have a story about that. When Cali and I were creating Results-Only Work Environment, we knew that we were on top of something that was going to be game-changing, really having every single person in the work force focus on one thing, and that's results. Not where they're working from, not when they're working, with a very different way of thinking.

We took it by that to the top HR folks at our organization, so everybody in the room was at the top of the house. And when we talked about the idea and what this could do in terms of productivity, engagement, top-line growth, all the things that we were all trying to do as an organization, the executive vice-president said, what a great idea that is. Let's take a look at all the job codes and see who can do it and who can't.

We never went back into that room again, because we're talking about every single person being clear about measurable results, so why would we need to look at job codes to understand who is going to focus on measurable results, and who isn't?

That's the other problem. We've come up with these labels, like teleworkers. If I'm not in the office, I have to have some sort of name. Remote worker, resident worker, flex worker, home-based worker, partial flex worker, and my favorite that I heard recently, maxi-flex worker. Could we have come up with a better name for that? [laughs]

All of these types have all kinds of policies and guidelines around them. And I will tell you this. From my chair, if you write a rule book, people can follow rules. What we've learned is, people are still not clear about why they were hired, and what they're supposed to be doing. The workplace is set around a certain set of beliefs.

I'm a boomer. I have a lot of people that I talk to and work with who are of my same generation. Sometimes I have been perplexed by some of the things that we continue to perpetuate. "How do I know my people are working if I can't see them?" I like to always add to that, well how do you know now? Just because people are in the office doesn't mean they're producing results.

We're under this false set of assumptions that if people are actually in the office they're producing good work.

"I like my people to be available in the office when I need them, I don't want to be wondering where to find them." Welcome to 2013, where there are so many ways we can communicate with people. That thought that we need to see people and the only way we can connect with them is to walk up to them physically, is just an old outdated way of thinking.

"You can't expect new employees to learn their job if they're not in the office." You can't expect new employees to learn their job if they're not clear about measurable results, and if the manager isn't coaching them in terms of that, not where they work from.

"We'll never be able to collaborate effectively if a lot of our associates are home-based." Again, instant messaging, voice mail, email, so many ways we can connect today.

"So that we are thinking the same, the only way I think we can really move around new ideas is to have everybody around the conference table." Well, that worked for us a long time ago, but today we have so many more ways that we can be efficient and effective.

"Our customer likes us to be in the office, period." I always say to that, I think what our customer likes is to be serviced in a way that they get what they're looking for and the results that they need. That's what they really want.

If we're going to be in the office every day and still not deliver the right customer experience, we're losing the game. Really what's happened is we've carried over the old currency of work into this century. Now this currency of work actually did serve our purposes before we had the technology we have today and the way we can operate in a whole different way when we work.

The old currency of work and how we measured it was time - so how much time we're putting in - plus physical presence, which where we're show up to actually do the work, and somehow that's going to equal results.

Now that time clock situation, even though we're not always punching one every day, it is still in our brain. We think about how many hours we put in, when we started, when we stop work, and how many days we work. We measure who we are in our work, and how dedicated we are, by this clock.

WK Kellogg Company started offering schedules in 1930. We have been trying to break free of the clock for a long time, and modern forms of telework, or working from home, began in 1972. Flexible schedules are not an innovative idea. We're still trying to break free of that platform, time plus physical presence.

I think all of you can agree with me that we know that people when they come in the office, some are just putting in time. They're looking at the clock, they're waiting till five o'clock, and even though a whistle doesn't blow, it's their signal that they can get up and leave.

Really, when you look at how the workplace has evolved over the past 50 or 60 years, it started out as an open workplace. Back when we had typing school, it was very quite open.

We could see everyone working, and we could talk to each other. Then, we thought, well, people need more privacy, so it really became a big deal to build mini-offices with cubicles around them.

Then, someone had a brilliant idea, in the '90s, that we should have open workplaces. Well, doesn't that just smack of 1945? It's nothing new, and it's we're still saying time plus physical presence must somehow equal results. Now, we're creating places where we can have open workplaces where people can bring their dogs.

Over time, even though we've tried to innovate or what we call "transform" work, all we've done is limit what's a workplace. Even if we're letting people work from home, or allowing them to work in a different way, they're still under the same culture of work.

I need to have a space to work in, my ergonomic chair, and I need to show somehow that I am available, when I should be available according to the old rules of work. I'm going to unveil what's next, the new platform for the 21st century. This platform is going to set up success for each and every business, and change the way leaders and mangers think about business.

So here's the definition. Each person is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done. Now, when I unveil this when I go around and speak, people are very either elated by this definition, or completely upset by it.

The one thing that people miss is that as long as the work gets done. I think the thing that's difficult often is to actually pin down whether or not people are getting work done, and do something about it. It's hard for us to exit people from the organization, for example. If people look like they're working hard, if they're putting in their time, and going to all the meetings, how do we really know if the work is getting done?

When you work under this definition, rather than time plus physical presence. Here's the kind of work force that you're building.

First of all, through self-focus. There's an equal balance of autonomy and accountability. Let's take a look at that just for a moment. If I have a lot of accountability and very little autonomy in how I get things done, I'm completely stressed out. I feel overworked and overwhelmed.

If I have a lot of autonomy, but not much accountability or clarity, I think that's where we feel, as managers, nervous about flexibility. If people aren't clear about measurable results and we don't know how to look for that, then we don't feel comfortable not having people right around us. This balance has to be in perfect balance, and not skewed in either direction.

When you have result-focused workforce, where people are completely autonomous, free to do whatever, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done and a hundred percent accountable, it sets up a very clear situation of no results, no job. It's that simple.

Not no results, I guess I'm going to take away your telework program. No results, I think you better come in earlier, no results, I think you better put in more time on that. No results, no job.

It's interesting how when we look at it that way, people crave and hunger to understand how they can show the delivery of results in a measurable way and actually becomes intrinsically motivated to go in that direction.

Well, when we put that out there, it might seem simple as a graphic, but really, how does that work in practice? We hear this all the time. What is the work? What is the actual work, is the question we're asking. The only way that we're going to figure that out, is to clear out all the clutter about who gets to work from where and at what time.

Then, we have to start doing this one thing, and hopefully today, that is the one thing you take away that can help you think about things differently, moving forward, is this next slide.

What I have to start doing and what all of us have to start doing, is manage the work, not the people. We have spent an inordinate amount of time with policy manuals and meetings trying to figure out how we're going to manage people better. We have forgotten about the work.

I'm going to tell you another story. I was working with an organization and it was a group of six people, now it was a small team, they were part of an organization of 2,600 people.

This particular team had a job to do and they're job required them to be at a certain place at a certain time. They were in charge of for a government agency making sure the citizens of Hennepin County, who needed these services. Food, a place to sleep, or health care, have the services they need, that they were able to get that.

When we started our training with them, there was a lot of sludge, a lot of entitlement, and bickering about who gets to work from where and who gets what. I was working with them. I asked this question to the team. I said, "You guys, when you go home at night, do you have some food to eat?" Of course, they all had food to eat.

I said, "Do you have a place to sleep at night?" "Well yeah, we all have places to sleep." "Do you have health care?" "Well, yeah, we all have great health care here." I said, "Well, that's goodie for you guys, because what I see right now, is that you are backlogged by 1,500 applications, and that there's 1,500 families that aren't getting the privileges you have, because you're not doing your work."

Now, they thought they were doing their work. They said to me, "Well, we need at least six more people to get through all these applications."

Prior to that, the manager had been managing the people, making sure that it was fair who was at the window, who did the applications, who was on the phone, and everything had to be fair. They had to move that around in the way based on time.

We asked the manager to move out of the way for a bit. Now move out of the way, in the way of get out of our way, but let the people handle this, right now. Figure out how they're going to get to their result.

Well, to try to make a really long story a little bit shorter, what happened was when they switched to the ROWE mindset and completed training, is they all of a sudden saw the work.

The work wasn't applications. What happened, is they went from 1,500 backlogged applications to 132 in three weeks. They decided that their job wasn't applications, that their job was to make sure they were taking care of the citizens. That was their legacy, and what they were supposed to be doing. They saw that they weren't doing that.

Now, what's interesting about that too, the manager was excited that they were working together differently. Were some people working from home? Sure. Were some people coming at different times? Sure.

That isn't what matters. What matters is that teams were focused on what mattered and were doing what they needed to do, in terms of the work.

What I learned, not too long ago, is that these same six people figured out that some families were not able to get there because if they left work during the day, they would be fired. They decided they were going to stay open until eight on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. These six non-exempt employees figured out how to do that without any cost to payroll.

When we're talking about being free to do whatever you want, whenever you want as long as the work gets done, it's really attaching people to what the actual work is and the activity, which is applications, standing at the window, phone calls - all of those are the activities of work. How you go about doing that can change if you focus on the right thing.

Let me give you an example of managing work versus managing people. If you're managing people, you're saying things like, "Office managers and receptionists, they need to be in the office during standard business hours to achieve results."

Rather than to be clear about what the result is, we're just standing on the notion that they need to be in a certain place, at a certain time. Now, here's a clear work directive. The target for our customer satisfaction score is 4.25. That's clear. Now, let's say I'm a receptionist and customer satisfaction is something I'm being measured on.

If I strolled in past the time the office door opened everyday, then the customers that come in are not going to be happy. My activity is actually compromising our customer satisfaction score.

Now, let's say I show up on time everyday, but I'm disgruntled. I act like the customers are bothering me. I'm trying to do other things when they're coming to my reception desk. Then, that activity, even though I'm on time, is creating a low satisfaction score.

If we focus on the measure of the work, then the activities that follow are going to be the right activities. Instead of calling a receptionist tardy for not coming in, I think that's grade school, we have to raise the bar and talk about how we're affecting - based on measurement - the outcome of the organization.

Here's another example: there are times that to communicate our thoughts effectively we need to be face-to-face. Again that's directing how people do the work, here's what's more clear. This is managing work. The deadline for the deliverable is Friday, April 2nd at two PM.

Now let's think about that for a minute. If people decide that in order to meet that deadline they need to come together physically, they will do that because it's based on getting that deliverable done. If we just say things like this is how we need to communicate then that's what people are focused on.

Also, feeling irritated sometimes, and it's hard for people to actually focus on what matters because they feel like they're being directed toward a way of doing things that isn't common sense, and what we want to do today is have people not only is their common sense but be clear about what they need to deliver.

So, it's time for us to change the conversation, and people in the work force are adults. But if they're not treated like adults, and they're treated like children that are going to steal candy from the candy jar if they're not supervised we are going to have the same thing that we tend to have over and over and over again, and we're never going to rise to the next level. The first thing that needs to happen is we need to drop the label, home-based worker, flex worker, resident worker, remote worker.

They'll just Sludge generators, "Boy, I wish I could work from home like Mary, she's not working. You know that we can't even have the meeting because she's at home again." That's not focused on the results of the work, that's only focused on location. We have to start calling it one thing, and that's the work.

It's hard to do that, because so much of the language of work is about where people get to work from, and asking permission, and telling people where we are. Right now I'm talking to all of you, and I don't know where you are and you know where I am, but that doesn't mean we can have a productive conversation or learn from each other, or change something in our own minds move business forward.

One thing that you can that you can think about in your day-to-day activities as a manager or leader is to take the conversation and change it. Well, subjective conversations manage the people, and an objective conversation manages the work. This is one thing you can start doing to effectively change the mindset of the workers in your organization. Change the conversation.

Let's start out with a subjective performance conversation first. Seen a lot of these, this young woman is working from home, and the manager is wondering why my deadlines weren't being met. So, go up to the employee "you've missed a couple of deadlines, is your daughter at home when you're working?"

That's my first red flag. Missing the deadlines is the issue, because that's about the work, but we're taking a it into something that's now subjective. Well, yes. Perhaps she needs to be in day care, or you may need to come into the office, besides we can't have our customers hear her fussing when you're on a call it's unprofessional.

Now the manager is in the business of managing her home life and her family. We had the same thing happen, when we started this a long time ago in a Fortune 100 company. Where we heard things like, "Well if you're shopping, and you answer the phone and the customer here's that you're in a shopping center, they're going to be upset."

It makes my head hurt a little bit, because what the customer wants, again, it's for you to respond to their need. A lot of times, we default to, "Well, we were in a meeting, or I was on another phone call," and we have all these excuses, and the customer wants just wants to be first. So, if we focus on that and make sure we respond, that's what's more important.

So she says "I think I can manage it. I like working from home." Another thing liking working from home and not delivering results that's a problem, so then the manager goes right back to "you've missed a couple of deadlines" this kind of conversation is a no-win situation. I've talked to lots of managers and leaders in organization who say, "Yeah, we take on the difficult conversations, and we hate to have to performance conversations. It's uncomfortable having performance conversation's."

It's because we're getting into subjective area. If we keep it focused on just the work and that's what we hold people accountable to then it doesn't matter if your daughter's at home, or if you're in a Starbucks, or if you're in the library, or on the street, or at the zoo, it doesn't matter. Are you delivering what we decided that you're going to deliver and can we measure that?

Let's flip that around now, in a results only work environment, or an organization where results are the most important thing and that's what people focus on, the manager role changes. It's very interesting to watch. First thing is that if the deadlines going to be met the managers not running around looking for the employee ever.

The employee already knows what's going on and they bring to the attention of the manager first thing. "One of our project deadlines is at risk, we haven't been able to get delivery dates from the supply chain team." "OK, that's clear the deadlines are at risk. I'm coming to my manager for help." The manager knows that you need help, "What can I do to help?" Now the employee has already thought through what they need. So I need you escalate it.

See if we can secure dates, or if we need to rework the timeline and still deliver the customer expectations. Now the manager knows what he or she needs to do, but here's another thing that I'd like you to think about, and see how this is working in your organization. The manager says, "I will do that right away." But don't just stop there, because what does right away mean or ASAP, as soon as possible?

The manager says, "When do you need an answer from me?" In the results-only work environment, people are very clear about exactly when they need things. You'll never hear things like sometime tomorrow, how about next week?, Can I get it to you in a few days?

Then what happens is the days go by and we're not sure if it's really going to happen and then we go back to the person and we say, "Well, I thought you said a few days," and in their mind a few days is different than yours. So, it's not clear. Then we wonder why we don't get what we need.

"By Thursday at noon," that way we still have room to adjust and still hit our target as is. Now also in this type of work environment, "by Thursday at noon," is very important in building trust. If I get that to you at or before noon you can trust that I will do that because that's how I behave, but if I blow away and don't deliver how I said I was going to deliver at that time then we have a breakdown of everything.

Plus, the project is at risk. "Got it, I'll have an answer to you by then," "Great, I'll inform the team, thanks." That conversation had nothing to do with where I'm working from, my home life, or anything else. It's all about one thing and that's the work. Here's what happens in terms of management, and the situation, management goes from a 20th century hall monitor.

When I say hall, I don't mean just the physical workplace. I mean monitoring people at home, remotely, whatever that looks like, but actually monitoring where they're working from and what time there working. To a 21st century results coach. The managers in a results-only work environment become coaches because people come to them with real issues and offer up solutions, so the manager can take a look at the landscape and actually help by offering suggestions, or solutions, or any changes that need to be made, so that the work can continue to move along.

It's very liberating for both the employee, and the manager, because their relationship changes. It's very adult to adult, everybody's responsible for how the organization is going to perform. There is an organization that we've worked with -- It was very interesting how the change culturally throughout the organization. The change happens from the middle out.

It's not top-down change, or a bottom top. It happens between the manager and the individual, and it moves out from there. If both sides become tighter around results, then all conversations move away from judging other people about how they're spending time, to what really matters. This organization we worked with has actually doubled their top line growth in five years, and today there receptionist talks about profitability.

We really want all of us pulling together and feeling like we have a stake in it, and the way that we can do that is make sure everybody understands measurably, how what they do affects the ultimate customer. So, building that results-focused work force again, it's that perfect balance between autonomy and accountability.

Too much autonomy, and not enough accountability, it's very uncomfortable for all of us as managers, because we are not sure what's getting done. All accountability, and no autonomy, or the ability to do things the way we need to using our common sense, makes us feel frustrated, overworked, overwhelmed, stressed out, and childlike. No results, no job it's that simple.

One of the things I've heard a lot about and read a lot about, and I'm sure all of you have as well is how do we really manage the generations that are all coming together in the workforce today? It's difficult, because we have two very different ways of thinking based on how we've all grown up. If we can take a different approach, in terms of the platform, we can level the playing field.

Instead of time plus physical presence, which is something that over the past forty years, as the boomer population was building their careers, being at work, using the technology we had during that time, having to be at work, and show up at work, and get that corner office was something that part of the culture of how you do things based on what tools that we had the time.

Today, if you take results as the one thing that everybody gets measured on, and the one thing that everybody is accountable to, then you actually level the playing field. It doesn't matter how long you've been in the workforce, it doesn't matter if you've been there a week, or 25 years. Results are still what are expected of you.

It's so interesting how when a new worker comes in, somebody new to the organization, the conversation between manager and new employee is much different in a ROWE, because they know that right out of the starting gate there has to be something measurable that starts to happen, and even if it's a learning experience for this person in terms of training, there's still an outcome that's measured.

So, it starts out that way. I remember when I started at a large organization, I came in and I went to my orientation, and then they showed me where my cube was. I literally did not know what to do. I didn't know where to start, I didn't have anybody helping. A lot of people feel that way, when they start in a new organization.

There are stressed, so they just start to put in time, because at least they can do that. At least they can show they are at the workplace, even though results aren't being achieved. It really does make things objective, not subjective. It's not personal, it's business, so when we keep our conversations adult like, and about the work we have a much more respectful and dignified relationship.

Really, the bottom line is, it's what you pay people for, results. Something really magical starts to happen when we moved to this platform, where people feel intrinsically motivated against something they can see. People start to focus on what matters, complacency turns into competence. So, we no longer feel like we're putting in our time until we retire.

We feel like we are actually contributing to something bigger than ourselves. It really does take that whole idea of the vertical, or paternalistic hierarchy, and make it a horizontal and opportunistic culture. So we're going from paternalistic to opportunistic, vertical to horizontal. If you're thinking about this as you move forward in your businesses, think about the language of work.

If we're focusing on the right things, and what matters, are we keeping our conversations objective? Are we managing work more effectively and having people use their common sense to manage themselves? Remember, if measurable results that are agreed upon aren't achieved, then no job. Now, that doesn't mean we just cut people off at the knees.

What it does mean is the conversations we have, are about the work and we talk about what that looks like, so that everybody's on the same page. No more coming into a yearly performance appraisal wondering what's going to happen. It's very clear, since you've known all along. Speaking of performance appraisal, make sure as you're looking at how your measuring performance, it's about something that can be measured.

I had a performance appraisal where I was being measured on the company values, and one of the values was having fun while being the best. I was told that I was having too much fun, and I was smiling too much, and I was too happy, and that made people uncomfortable. My coworker was told even though she was achieving great results, she didn't smile enough, and she needed to do more of that.

These are the things that are killing us, and we are all going to step up to the plate and do the right thing, if we all get clear on what really matters. So, it's up to you. You can think about fostering the same 20th century workplace with lots of amenities, and everything that you think people need to be in the workplace longer and more, or you can think about building a 21st century workforce of people who are clear about what they need to deliver, and work together, and collaborate with each other based on a common goal.

So, I want to thank you guys for hopping on with me today, and allowing me to share this with you. I'm going to pause for a bit and see if you have any questions, put up a slide that shows ways that you can join the conversation that's changing today, the conversation about results, and not time.

The conversation about what matters, and be part of that so that we can all live more fruitful lives and have thriving businesses well into the 21st century. Anybody have any questions?

Bob: Hey Jody, it's Bob here, we've got a few questions. How can we manage all of these negative attitudes? That was done early on probably a about the negative perspectives people have about the results only work environment.

Jody: That's such a great question, I'm glad somebody asked that. First of all there are negative perspectives people have in the workplace, and I think based on what we've talked about today, we have negative perceptions about things because we feel like things aren't fair and we're frustrated. In terms of results only work environment it's so difficult...You guys I'm sure can imagine the pain of trying to help people understand that we need to shift the focus away from flexibility.

The first thing I would say that's important to do is, start doing that yourself because the way that we can start making real change in organizations, is by changing our own behavior, and I don't want to sell to you guys, but when we go through training with people we actually have strategies around how to take the workforce and have them start moving the culture forward together so it doesn't feel like top-down.

We have strategies around making smart mobs of people who are moving in the correct direction together, and eliminating all language that's not focused on one thing and that's results.

Bob: It's Bob here. It was interesting we had Marshall Goldsmith up to my city to do a training event and he talked about the language that he tries to get managers and leaders to not use, things like, "but," using the word but. He punished people he coaches with, and so he was telling us about even coaching. The CEO of Ford Motor Company and he makes them put twenty dollars on the table, every time they use the word, " but."

A couple of other words that he has as favorites, and so he started doing it in the room with us. There were 500 people in the room, and everybody who caught somebody else using one of those negative words had to put a dollar in the table, which was eventually given to a charity, but it's almost like you can create those kind of things in an environment, couldn't you?

Jody: Absolutely, it's funny you should say that, because back in 2004 when we started to do our environmental sludge eradication strategy. We actually had the team put a change jar, around by the team. So any time anybody sludged somebody else or heard any kind of sludge, they had to put money in the jar, and the weirdest thing happened.

People were so energized, and I'm sure like the people you were talking about before, to not have to pay in, and they wanted sludge to go away so bad, that we found the jars empty. And so we thought OK, well, people are really hungry to create a place where they feel dignified and respected, and they just let go of some of that petty stuff. So I love what you're saying because we need to find ways to remove some of the stuff that just isn't useful, to us as managers and leaders.

Bob: Yeah, absolutely. Here's another question, is this all about trust? Can we trust everybody to simply get results?

Jody: Well, that's a great question too. The thing is that if people don't get results then they shouldn't be getting paid every week. And so, what we are doing right now is we are paying people to put in time, right? We are paying them to do time and get work done.

The trust thing is interesting. If we ask somebody to do something and we agree with that person that they will do it by a certain time and they don't do it then obviously trust breaks down. But we have to start with that clarity first. So if you are clear and it's not happening then we have to look at that in terms of performance. Yeah, you can't trust that person to perform and guess what? I guess they can't work there.

So, it really starts with that clarity about what you need delivered. What needs to happen and then you can see whether or not you can actually trust people.

Bob: Yeah, this next question kind of fits with that because you've talked about if you don't get results, you don't have a job. This question says, "How do you do this in a union environment?"

Jody: Oh, I love that question and I'm glad you asked it. So, yes, we have actually been in union shops before. The thing about union shops that we make sure that we do when we start working with that type of situation, is we have all the key stakeholders at the table. So, we know that there's contracts that are in place and as we're working with the union shop, we have to understand if there's things about the contract that are going to rub against this idea.

We make sure that we work closely with the union representative and as we watch the workplace evolve, often times that we find is that the relationships between the managers and the individuals get stronger and better and more respectful, but also that the contract needs to be tweaked so that they make more sense for the future workplace, or the contemporary workplace.

We're actually, probably in the next six months coming out with some information about that, in terms of an ebook on our site that we are going to have some of our union stewards and Presidents, talk about their shift in thinking as they watched their people move into this type of work environment.

Bob: That's really cool, I look forward to reading that. This question is in a similar vein. You mentioned coming up with measurable results. How do you recommend paying for results versus paying for time?

Jody: Well, that's a good question. You know we have a lot of programs out in the last couple of decades that were called Pay for Performance. But what was happening, what was getting muddled up in that is that there was still a time presence around it. The first thing that we have to do, is we have to take that whole measure of time out of the equation. It doesn't mean that people need to utilize time to get stuff done, you still have to put time forth, but we have to have conversations around that completely go away.

When that starts to happen, people start to realize, in their brains, as their brains shift, "that is what I'm getting paid for -- performance." They discover that on their own. They discover, "wow, if I don't perform I don't get paid," not, "if I don't perform I still have a job because I talk about how hard I am working." If there is an adaptive shift in what people believe, and if I believe that I can not perform, or suboptimize my performance and still get a paycheck, I am going to continue to do that.

So we have to take away that safety net of being able to talk about how hard I work or how long I work. Those are irrelevant piece of information. And let people discover on their own that's actually what they're getting paid for, because this culture is shifting in that direction.

Bob: Here's a question, it says "It seems to me that managing people is not really not letting them be responsible for their work." And I had a question for you that ties into that and I thought that if you create your new way it really sets up an environment where all people hold each other accountable.

Jody: Oh, that is beautiful. [laughs] That is absolutely true. Because people realize that we are all connected in terms of measurable results and if we are all held accountable for that then we have to hold each other accountable, because any one person can bring it down or make it more difficult for the rest of us to perform, so it's not tolerated.

In a results-only work environment, somebody who talks about how many hours they work and puts in time and does not deliver just isn't tolerated .So the conversations change, and the managers become much better at managing performance and moving people out of the organization that are unable to work respectfully for the team to perform. So they're absolutely right on.

Bob: It looks like we have one more question here, it says "If we go to this style of workplace we might have to change our hiring practices because we would need different kinds of managers. Will managers learn new ways or do we have to hire different people?

Jody: I would say that managers can learn new ways. I think that over the last 50 or 60 years managers have been more in the command-and-control style. It's not that they can't learn to manage work more effectively, they can. But they have to go through the hard stuff of letting go of what they thought they needed to control because their controls are now around the work and making sure that they're coaching and mentoring the work.

There's control right there, not in managing people's time and place. It's a shift, it's not an easy shift. Managers tell us that at first it's really difficult to flip into that different way of thinking. But once they practice it for awhile they become much stronger and better at observing the people that are doing the work in a way that helps the work be more effective, so it is absolutely possible.

Bob: It would be pretty refreshing.

Jody: Yes.

Bob: Absolutely. Well, thank you very much Jody. That was very enlightening and I really appreciate you spending an hour of your time with us today. Again, I want to remind folks that her books are available in our bookstore. Please feel free to check that out or of course go to your own favorite bookstore and pick them up. And connect with Jody on some of her join-the-conversation connections. So thanks very much, I really appreciate you being here and thanks to everybody who's been here at our session.

Home vs. Office? You are asking the wrong question

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400

The title in this CNN Money article asks the wrong question: Home vs. office - Where should you work?

The right question is: What is the work?

Once that's been answered, then a decision about how, where, and when to get work done in the most productive ways can be made.

People who are not in a Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) will often make decisions about where they work from without any consideration being given to what the work actually is. We can't even count how many times we've heard people say "I want to work from home on X day of the week", and when pressed about what their results are, they have no idea. This is simply not healthy for any organization. Results cannot be delivered if people don't know what they are.

In a ROWE, this thought process flips - people ask first about what the work is so they can actually make the right decisions about how, when, and where. ROWE employees know that if they are not where they need to be when they need to be there, based on the results that they need to achieve, their performance will be addressed. Nobody wants that so gaining clarity about the work and how it's being measured is a natural first step.

If you, or any team in your organization, find that you are in conversations about where work is taking place, stop. Just stop now. Make it easier. Talk about what the work is and the right decisions about where it should take place will follow.

Really - they will.

from the ROWE vs. Telework infographic

Working All Those Hours For What?

Tue, 09 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Please welcome to the blog our special guest, Robert Pozen! You might remember us swooning over one of his articles on HBR recently where he talked about results and why people are working so many hours. He's agreed to post some of his thoughts on the subject here on our blog. First, read this. Then, immediately run out to your nearest bookstore and pick up his book, Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours.

"He's one of my best employees. He always puts in ten-hour days, sometimes much more."

Is this how you judge your employees? Probably yes, according to a 2010 study published in Human Relations. In the study, a group of researchers led by business professor Kimberly Elsbach conducted extensive interviews of 39 corporate managers. They found that these managers generally considered their employees who spent more time in the office to be more dedicated, more hardworking, and more responsible.

At first glance, this seems perfectly reasonable. Hourly wages and the classic 40-hour work week have trained us to measure our labor by the number of hours we log. However, this mindset is dead wrong when applied to today's professionals. The value of lawyers, consultants, and analysts isn't the time they spend, but the value they create through their knowledge.

Even worse, when we judge our employees' work by the time they spend at the office, we impede the development of productive habits. By focusing on hours worked (hello, corporate summer hours) instead of results produced, we avoid answering the most critical question: "Am I currently using my time in the best possible way?" As a result, professionals often use their time inefficiently.

Business meetings are a perfect illustration. Very few professionals would say that attending meetings is the best use of their time. In one survey, white-collar workers estimated that two thirds of meeting time is pure waste. I agree: all too often, information is repeated or the discussion goes off-topic.

Yet, many meetings are too long, too large, and too unfocused. Why? Consider one manager's description of an employee, as reported in Elsbach's study:

"So this one guy, he's in the room at every meeting. Lots of times he doesn't say anything, but he's there on time and people notice that. He definitely is seen as a hardworking and dependable guy."

In other words, this manager praised his or her employee not for the value that he added to the meetings that he attended, but merely for his physical presence. Given this structure of rewards, it is no surprise that we keep seeing unnecessary and unproductive meetings.

More broadly, many professionals use their time inefficiently because their firm's hour-oriented culture hasn't forced them to think rigorously about what's really important. Sometimes, this leads professionals to spend an inordinate amount of time perfecting one particular task — say, the formatting of an internal presentation — instead of spending time where it might be more useful.

Worst of all, if you measure your productivity by time spent, your only way to get ahead is to spend more hours in the office — to the detriment of the rest of your life. In research published in HBR in 2006, Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce reported that 62 percent of high-earning individuals in America (whom they define as the top 6% of earners) work 50 hours or more per week; 35 percent work 60 hours or more per week.

That fits my observation of New York law firms, where associates routinely bill 3,000 hours each year. That equates to 60 hours per week during a 50 week year; including non-billable hours, these 3,000-hour lawyers generally worked 12 hour days, six days a week. They barely had enough time for sleeping — let alone caring for their families, or just having fun.

What You Can Do About It

How can you remove yourself from this treadmill of long, wasted hours at work? Start by constantly evaluating your use of time — even if your organization's culture doesn't force you to.

That means knowing what's important to you, your organization, your employees and your boss — and, vitally, what's not important. So think critically and rigorously about your priorities.

Then, be prepared to say "no" to requests that don't matter:

Decline meetings, whenever you can. If the outcome is not clear and you're not sure what your role is, ask. If these things still aren't clear, then the meeting is a waste of time.
Don't be afraid to use the "delete" button when reviewing your inbox. Be sure your focus is on things that will help you, and the teams you work with, achieve your outcomes.
If you can't say "no" to a certain request, complete the task and move on. Continue relentlessly removing wasted time wherever you can.

While individual employees can change their own habits, organizations need strong-willed leaders to make more radical changes. These leaders must thoroughly reform their organization's implicit and explicit reward structure. Are employees praised for coming in on Saturday — even if only to finish work that could have been completed during regular hours? Are employees suspicious of others who leave early for the day in order to watch their child's Little League games?

Of course, this change won't come easily. It's easy to count hours. It's much harder to set project metrics or make subjective evaluations. But smart leaders realize that the only way they can succeed is by getting the most out of their employees. And the only way they can get the best out of their employees is to focus on results, not hours.

Robert C. Pozen is a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. His latest book is Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours.

ROWE vs Telework [INFOGRAPHIC]

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

There's a good reason we say that "ROWE goes beyond telework." There's sometimes a misunderstanding that ROWE is simply a "work at home" program, similar to telework. Couldn't be further from the truth. ROWE takes some of the common sense tactics of telework (hey, I don't have to work in an office when I can do this somewhere else) but then goes beyond telework by changing culture and management mindsets, so that the focus is Results. Period. And - going beyond telework includes all industries and all people. Cool.

But instead of writing an exhaustive compare/contrast essay here, we decided to infographicize it for you. Yes, that's a word ... just go with it.

Behold, ROWE vs. Telework!
(click image to enlarge)

Book Review of Why Managing Sucks in HR Digest

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

If you missed this great review of Why Managing Sucks in the May 2013 edition of HR Digest, we have the full article right here.

From the review by Amy Brown:

Every once in a while it is a good idea to pause for a moment and reflect on where we are expending our energy and if we are achieving desired outcomes. Hmm. As human resources professionals we focus on furthering the mission of our organizations, engaging employees, inspiring performance, and reducing turnover. Of course we also spend time creating policies and procedures and responding to employee relations issues. We provide employees with job descriptions, but do employees really understand what work is and what is expected of them?

Click the image below to read the full article