Facilitating a company’s migration to a Results Only Work Environment is a high stakes game. You have the opportunity to further the ROWE movement and transform peoples’ lives while helping the company succeed… or, if you fail, you could blow the chance for all those people to have a life that works for them, instead of them working for a living.

So what makes a facilitation win?

When a ROWE migration goes exceptionally well, I have noticed 4 factors interplay that ensure success: Audience, Facilitator, Presentation, and Energy.

I think these are great tips for any public presenting, so I thought I would share…

1. AUDIENCE:

Type – Know your audience. Migrating a software development company has to look different than giving a presentation to SXSW attendees. Be aware of the people you are speaking to by putting yourself in their place and asking, “What are the three major results I hope to gain from this presentation?”

Composition – Who is actually in the audience? This will help you tailor your delivery. Is the group older? Younger? If the audience is mostly Gen Y, references to “The Office” may be appropriate. If the group is mostly Gen X, then references to “Office Space” may serve you better. Is the audience mostly blue collar workers (maybe you lose the tie) or executives (you will have to use smaller words; just kidding… sort of.)?

History – What do you know about the audience? Have they heard this before? Do they think you are just the next “flavor of the month” program they must endure, or is there some buzz about what you have to say? What is their view of what they think you are going to say?

Size – How large is the audience? If there are only 3 of them, you are not presenting so much as guiding a conversation. If there are 300 of them, then you will need props! A microphone, speakers, projection screen, etc. A smaller audience will require different techniques to get them excited and engaged with what you are saying. For example, with a small group, you may be a bit more intimate, sharing personal stories, and asking tougher questions that they can take time to consider or debate. A larger audience may get derailed easily by a conundrum or question that requires a lot of discussion or guidance over a limited time.

2. FACILITATOR:

Character – As the person presenting, you must choose what parts of your character to show the audience. For example, are you showing your confidence (by walking into the audience space or casually sitting with them) or are you showing your fears (by hiding behind a podium or reading directly from every power-point slide)? Is your posture straight (exuding confidence and trustworthiness) or are you slouching (exuding anxiety or depression)?

Rhythm – Pacing yourself can be tough, especially if you are excited or nervous. Check your breathing. Are you talking so fast you are running out of breath before you complete sentences? Are you speaking from the bottom part of your stomach (your diaphragm) thus naturally boosting your voice and confidence, or are you speaking from your upper chest, panting, and sounding “nasally” like a phone operator from an old black and white movie?

Connection – Are you leading or loading? That is, are you providing relevant information and guiding the group to meaningful insights, or just loading them down with dry data and information that will not inspire them to action when you leave? How much information do they need? How much are they willing to stand? During your presentation, check in with the audience and ask if they are “getting it” or if they need more (or possibly less) information before you move on.

3. PRESENTATION:

Content – How does what you have to say contribute to transforming the lives of the audience members? Does the content move and inspire you? If the content does not excite you, how can you expect it to excite others?

Timing – Know at what point in the presentation you should be at the half-way mark and when there are 10-15 minutes left. Know what parts of the presentation you can short-cut if the audience calls you to spend more time than you planned on a particular point. If you are using a slide-show, know the timing and content of the slides. Most of all, do not read directly from the slides if you can avoid it. Nothing looks more boring or uninteresting. Not even this guy.

4. ENERGY:

Flow – Managing energy can make or break any presentation. Too little and your delivery is flat, lifeless, boring; too much and you risk losing credibility and coming off like the Sham-Wow guy (but that is better than being too boring if you must choose between them). The flow of energy in the room can be affected by the audience, as well. You may have to pump up your energy if you are dealing with the “after-lunch coma” crowd, for example, or you may have to work harder to reign the room in if it is near the end of shift on a Friday.

Most of all, remember, these rules always apply… unless they don’t. Every audience is different and you are different for every audience. Some days you will be on your game like Bruce Lee; some days you might feel more like Frank Drebin, but if you keep the four points in mind: Audience, Facilitator, Presentation, and Energy… you will still come out on top.

Mark shares…

We’re just six days into the school year, and my Results Only Learning Environment is taking off. My students are grasping the idea of emphasizing the results, rather than the method of achievement. I have explained to my students that a ROLE is built around the theme of Type I behavior — borrowing from Dan Pink’s theories in his bestselling book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.

In order to get students to understand this new approach to learning, I showed them a presentation that explains how students will be given a “menu” of activities for most learning units and how they’ll be able to choose their method of assessment. The presentation can be found on our classroom web site. Each day, I have continued to underscore the concept of Type I people and intrinsic motivation. I am teaching them that Type I behavior is built on autonomy, mastery and purpose (Dan Pink’s concepts).

“You have to want to learn and want to improve,” I tell students. “It has to be more important to you than it is to me. And if you have this sort of intrinsic motivation — the desire to work alone, to master a task and to contribute to something bigger than our classroom — you’ll meet every life and academic goal you ever set.” My job, I explain, then becomes more of an academic coach than a teacher. I provide the learning outcomes, give students different activities from which to choose, and they complete the task that best suits their learning styles.

To better illustrate this concept, take a look at our summer reading project. It’s located on our classroom web site at this link. The project offers that “menu” of assessment choices that I told students they’d get.

Of course, their first question is, “What’s it worth?” My answer perplexes them. “I’m not sure,” I say. “I’m not concerned with your grade; I just want your best work.”

As soon as the results are in, I’ll share them here.

FutureWork is a collaboration of the host, the guests and you, and the audience to create meaningful solutions to workforce challenges and opportunities. FutureWork will feature reoccurring guests that are engaging and insightful, with subject matter expertise on innovation, future trends, change, and forward thinking workplace solutions.

ROWE will be featured in a five part series on FutureWork Radio. Listen to the first interview between Laura and Cali here.

Of course, ‘working from home’ doesn’t work for all job tasks. DUH. But focusing on RESULTS does work for all jobs. To hear people say that ROWE doesn’t work for some jobs is simply saying that not everyone should focus on results. And that’s just silly.

Let’s take a look at Firefighters. We learned from a Firefighter in our area that at his fire department there are no schedules (nobody is at the station sitting around waiting for a fire or medical emergency). So, how can we be sure the fire or medical emergency will be handled if all the Firefighters aren’t ‘scheduled’ and are potentially slacking off with family, friends and who knows what?

Here’s how it works. There’s a bunch of Firefighters. Each firefighter has to respond to a minimum of 25% of the calls each month. They can respond to more, but they must do at least 25%. When they choose to respond to a call, their expected response time is 15 minutes.

When a call comes in, every Firefighter in the area has the opportunity to respond. If Firefighter “A” is 100 miles away at a family reunion, he/she doesn’t respond. If on the other hand, Firefighter “A” is nearby and able, they respond. And, if Firefighter “A” is going to a family reunion, he/she doesn’t have to inform all of the other Firefighters.

Now, you might worry that all of the Firefighters will be too far away and unable to respond at the same time, but that NEVER happens.

Why?

When a citizen takes on the responsibility to fight fires and handle emergencies in the community, they are accountable. They understand their objectives. They understand the outcome of their work. And they are trusted to do their part, so they do it. As a team.

There’s no “Frank never responds to calls! He is always too far away” or “Mary is always the last one to respond after midnight. She is so lazy” or “I wish I could come in late everyday”.

The beauty of this is that management doesn’t have to ‘schedule’ people to ensure the job gets done. And the firefighters don’t have to call around and get someone to cover their ‘time’ if something comes up. There’s a job to get done and the team makes it happen.

There is a huge fear out there that people are just basically slackers, and if given the opportunity, wouldn’t do any work for their paycheck. That if we didn’t have a bunch of rules governing how they will work, when they will work and how long they will work, then no work would happen. And it’s that fear that drives all of the silly rules.

How about if we stop protecting the people that are just putting in their time, are good at following all the silly rules and do little or no real work? It’s a small percentage. And everyone knows who they are.

Throw out the rules, get clear on the results, and let the adults that you hire do their jobs. Let them respond to their lives – part of which is work – in a way that makes sense.

I want to share something personal with you that was a scary moment for me. I hesitated to share this story, but I think you deserve an inside look into what we do and what we know is at stake each time we visit an organization.

A while back, I experienced my first “facilitation fail”.

Leading a ROWE migration is always daunting, but more so when you are the “new kid” on the team. The thing is, I am acutely aware that peoples’ lives are in my hands. I know I have the opportunity to forever transform the way they work and live… or, if I blow it, I may blow their only chance to have a life that works for them instead of them working for a living.

Of course, at any point in a migration, not everyone is at the same level of readiness or understands ROWE concepts in the same way or with the same comfort level as any other person in the room.

It is up to me to keep the group at a more or less steady equilibrium while getting everyone on the same page. That means equalizing the pressure by knowing when to “turn the heat up” on some people (challenging ideas or beliefs) and knowing when to turn down the heat on others (providing validation or reassurance) as well as knowing when to let the room “simmer” (allowing the group to find their own solutions with minimal guidance). Jody is fond of repeating this famous bit of advice to illustrate the principle: “Comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted”.

(For you language enthusiasts, I tried to trace the origin of that intriguing quote. I believe Jody borrowed it from author Ron Heifetz, who may have borrowed a version of it from poet Cesar A. Cruz, who may have reworked it from its likely original publication more than a hundred years ago by journalist Finley Peter Dunne: “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”)

Okay, so here is the personal part that I hesitated about.

During one particular session, I turned the heat up, it seems, a bit too high and, in turn, alienated a couple managers present, one in particular. Worse, the conversation degraded as a long time employee became passionately defensive over the possibilities of ROWE (normally, this is a good thing, but this employee pitted herself against a couple fearful people with an extraordinary amount of power who were not fond of what she had to say). After the presentation, things went further downhill. One leader felt sabotaged by the group (and me, as I was leading the migration) and  actively worked to alter the team’s progress. It is a pity, but it happens.

No worries, everything worked out and seems to be back on track now. The point is, it was totally my failure to connect with one or two people in the room that allowed the session to make a right turn at Albuquerque.

The world is changing (whether some people like it or not) and ROWE is the way work will happen in the future (which is nearer than some people like to think), but we can not blame anybody for feeling confronted or fearful of inevitable transformation. In other words, change is scary. Even changing a little habit like what we eat is sometimes too challenging to overcome because we fear leaving our comfort zone.

We see a common form of this fear or resistance from leaders and long-time employees when they first hear the definition of a Results Only Work Environment: “Each person is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done.”

A typical knee-jerk reaction is a variation of this: “I have worked here (30) years. I put in my time and busted my butt just to earn 3 weeks vacation. Now you’re telling me that any punk walking through that door comes in with ‘Unlimited time off as long as the work gets done’?!? I. Don’t. Think so.”

I understand ROWE can be challenging and scary, but it is dismaying that a few frightened rabbits can so easily rob many people of owning their life AND generating results for their organization. It is also a bit heartbreaking to know one failure to connect as a facilitator can have a profoundly depressing impact on a large group of people.

Failure is as inevitable as transformation, unfortunately, and the important thing is to learn from each moment that we falter, and improve.

Again, I am glad to report my first fumble was recovered by our phenomenal team and we are still headed for the goal line, but it was definitely a scary moment (and hey, change is scary even for the change agents!).

I thought an inside personal glimpse into the ups and downs of being a ROWE facilitator should be shared you with you guys. After all (and I do not mean to be hokey, but…) you are the reason we do this.

Go Rowe!

We are going to start using the mailing list to send heads-up on events, post important notices, and offer special prizes to our “inner circle” of ROWE supporters.

If you have already signed up, no need to do it again (unless you just want to be extra sure). If not, now is a good time…

Thanks!

P.S. We hate spam as much as everyone else, so don’t worry. We won’t be sending a million alerts or any junk mail, and, of course, we won’t share your email address or personal information with anyone outside of CultureRx. Expect to hear from us maybe once or twice a month if you sign up. Oh, and be sure to add “RoweTeam@gorowe.com” to your safe-senders list or we could end up in your junk-mail folder. And that would make us sad.

Go Rowe!

We wanted some water. We didn’t even get attention. Providing customer service in retail IS focusing on results. This is why we believe every industry can benefit from ROWE.

We love when people share these stories with us and hope you enjoy reading them and realize ROWE is happening and will continue to grow.

An excerpt:

“Forget working from home; you can work from anywhere. Doesn’t it seem silly to drive to a designated location to work when you have the ability and resources to work from virtually anywhere? I used to see my uncle a few times a year in San Francisco. That all stopped when I graduated college and started working full time. Now, all I have to do is block out transit times on my calendar to let my coworkers know I am unavailable, and viola! Suddenly, I’m visiting my uncle AND working without missing a beat (or a deadline).”

Enjoy the full story here.

Thanks for blogging about your ROWE experience, Jessica! And thank all of you who continue to move the ROWE movement!

We also want to thank everyone who contributed their time and insight to the story.

Following is an excerpt…

Daniel Pink says HR executives who don’t buy into the ROWE concept might not understand how it could change HR, along with the rest of the company.

“More of the administrative tasks end up going away for HR and, I think, it frees up HR to do more sophisticated, strategic work like finding and nurturing great talent,” he says. “HR does fewer of the routine ham-and-egg administrative [tasks] and does more of the strategic responsibilities and does better for the firm.”

Eva Sage-Gavin, executive vice president of human resources at Gap, says she sees a similar change for HR since the organization went ROWE. If an employee is responsible for completing a task and doesn’t do so, for example, he or she has the entire team to answer to — not just the supervisor and HR. And that’s changed how HR does its job.

“I’ve found something amazing: It’s almost relieving HR from being a disciplinarian because the team depends on each other”

Read the whole story, “Anytime, Anywhere”

The other day, a few songs grabbed my attention. The lyrics got me thinking.

“When you believe in things you don’t understand, then you suffer” ~ Stevie Wonder, Superstition

After listening to Stevie sing that hook, I found myself thinking about the traditional work environment. Crazy. I know. But think about it.

How many policies, procedures, and “ways it’s always beens” must you endure just to be allowed to do your job? Do you even understand WHY you are required to do these things? Like, what is the legitimate, business reason?

No legitimate business reason = no focus on results = then you suffer!

“There’s too many things that I haven’t done yet. Too many sunsets, I haven’t seen” ~ Sara Bareilles, Many The Miles

Again, my mind drifted back to the traditional work environment. I remembered how difficult it was for me (and is for so many of you) to schedule around work all the things one NEEDS to do in life. That includes family, being a caregiver for a loved one, working a second job, taking classes, mowing the lawn, grocery shopping, etc., etc., etc.

But what about the things you WANT to do! Things like hobbies, desires, passions, dreams, and interests. Those things are important too.

How you work should not get in the way of how you want to enjoy life.