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Pioneering Best Buy Abandons ROWE; Catapults Workforce Back to Dark Ages

MedievilKing_iStock_000004614715_Small (2)Once again I’m baffled by yet another Fortune 500 CEO’s decision to end their company’s workplace flexibility program. Last week I discussed the horrendous decision by Yahoo!’s Marissa Mayer, and this week it’s even worse: Best Buy, the original sponsor (I don’t want to give them credit for creating it… Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson did that) of the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) that I am extremely passionate about, has decided to reverse course back to the Industrial Age and treat its employees like minions who can’t be trusted to do their jobs.  To the rack, you silly peasants!

According to an article today in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Best Buy’s CEO Hubert Joly told his employees “You need to feel disposable as opposed to indispensable.”  Read an Update on this quote

Wow… just, wow. I’m not surprised he thinks this, but I am naively surprised he’d admit this publicly. Way to garner loyalty. Way to make your team feel like they are valued and not merely widgets being moved around to suit your whims. Way to show you’re a company moving towards Enlightenment instead of desperately back to the Dark Ages. I have news for you, sir, your decision to end ROWE makes it abundantly clear that you do not care at all about your employees OR your company’s success. A company is nothing without great ideas, great products or services, and great people. The first two can never emerge or be sustained without the last one. But in Joly’s own words, Best Buy proves its people are the lowest concern on its list of priorities.  A company that treats its heart and soul this way is one I will reconsider doing business with.

This latest (hopefully short) trend by big businesses to focus on employees being physically in the workplace instead of focusing on outcomes (aka actual work) consistently blows my mind. I’m trying to understand the root of the problem, which seems to be born of the “this is the way we did it when I was growing up” mentality combined with not really knowing why their businesses are in trouble. I also hypothesize there is the combination of a tendency for upper managers to be control freaks who don’t trust that the people who work for them are capable adults (er… why did you hire them???), and our society’s premium on the extroverted personality.

How the modern workworld struggles with treating employees like adults has been adeptly handled elsewhere, but I’d like to explore the extravert/introvert angle here a little further. Extroversion can be tied into these latest disturbing kneejerk reactions by reviewing some of the comments these CEO’s have been making ala “all hands on deck” and this gem from Best Buy spokesman Matt Furman, “It makes sense to consider not just what the results are but how the work gets done.”  Why is that exactly? If you are gaining results, why does it matter how the work gets done? Sounds like a chicken and egg problem.  Last November Joly apparently told the Star-Tribune that he wanted to restore accountability.  How does he plan to do so without focusing solely on results,  and instead watching the clock?  It’s clear these corporate leaders view physical collaboration as the only way to generate new ideas, and spark creativity, but they’re not entirely certain what results they are trying to achieve. Big problem. While I certainly do not want to dismiss the power that watercooler talk can have in sparking a wildfire of innovation, I think assuming that is the only way to do so fails to see the other ways a fire can be lit, and dismisses how about 50% of the population prefers to think. Often the best ideas are born from independent (introverted), quiet thinkers who obsess over solving a problem in solitude. I submit Steve Wozniak and Albert Einstein as two (out of a myriad of) such geniuses. They didn’t come up with their ideas in a vacuum, but expanded upon ideas brought forth by others before them. However, their real epiphanies came to them when they were allowed (to paraphrase Einstein) to daydream alone, Einstein from his Swiss patent office, gazing at the stars, and Wozniak before and after his day job from his office cubicle in total privacy. I would argue many of the most amazing ideas in the history of mankind have come to fruition in just this way.

I have no idea if Joly or Mayer are extroverts or introverts. It doesn’t matter, as many introverts can learn to behave like extroverts in order to assimilate into social and workplace norms. They myth of the antisocial introvert is insidious. But as an introvert myself, the premium on face to face collaboration at the office is obviously an extroverted value. In a previous blog I discussed introversion vs. extroversion. As I noted, one thing that distinguishes an introvert from an extrovert, is brain chemistry. This difference results in the generalization that extroverts think as they speak, whereas introverts think first, then speak. By forcing introverts to always collaborate like an extrovert (brainstorming session anyone?!?), you’re limiting their ability to bring their best ideas to the table. You’re effectively telling half the population (yes half) that because they are wired differently, they’re not welcome in your company.

The beauty of ROWE is that it allows a way for very different personalities and ways of thinking to come together in the ways that work best for them because the only thing they focus on is achieving results expected of them. ROWE allows for each situation to be tailored to specific needs, rather than relying on an obtuse top down mandate to serve every purpose well.

And sadly, for companies that abandon, or never move to a ROWE, they might as well be telling their customers and shareholders that they care more about office politics, than about getting things done well. I have yet to hear any argument that adequately shows that focusing on time and attendance instead of solely on results is a better way to solve the massive problems these companies are having. In a ROWE, people keep their jobs when they achieve results, as defined by managers in collaboration with employees based on the overall goals and objectives of the company as a whole. As long as those objectives are correct, and as long as the employee is achieving results, it doesn’t matter how or where the work happens. It seems to me, the Yahoo!s and the Best Buy’s of the world have yet to identify exactly what the root of their troubles are, and instead they have embarked on a witch hunt, ready to burn at the stake anything they don’t understand. You can serve the master or results or the master of presenteeism, but you can’t serve them both.  Why is it that we give more freedom to our college students to achieve results than we do to productive, responsible adults?

ROWE is not a work from home program. It is an all-that-matters-is-doing-your-job program. Joly clearly doesn’t get that. He’d rather dictate how work should happen based on his own personal preferences and temperament. He’d rather throw Best Buy – the first incubator of the most revolutionary workplace reformation ever — back into the dark ages when internal company politics ruled all behaviors, instead of focusing entirely on customer satisfaction and measurable achievement. He’d rather bow to the pressure of public perception and a Wall Street who doesn’t understand the work world has moved ahead of their outdated methods. He’d rather take comfort in knowing that he is the boss and what he says goes. He’d rather arrogantly continue to believe his ideas are better than the collective ideas of his massive workforce who know better than he does how to do their individual jobs.

He’d rather treat people as disposable, instead of recognizing his highest performers are indispensable.

Good luck with that.

 

Cheers,

PersephoneK

Update: According to a 03/18/2013 Op Ed piece written by Joly in the Star Tribune, his comments were misconstrued.  I have decided to leave my post as it was originally posted, because I believe the overall result of the removal of ROWE has not changed at all by his comments.  In fact, I believe they’ve been re-enforced by his clear lack of understanding of what ROWE is.

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ROWE-Vo-lution: The Solution to Yahoo!’s Sinking Ship

[easyazon-image align=”left” asin=”B00B0H9QWU” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51l7MmNDlpL._SL160_.jpg” width=”103″]One of my many passions during the past five years or so has been identifying a career that is personally fulfilling, yet allows me to live the life I want as much as possible. This has actually always been important to me, but somewhere during 2007 my professional life took a turn into a decidedly unpleasant direction. I’ll spare you the details of that in this post, but as a result of that I began feverishly studying topics like Job Burnout and Work-Life Balance and in general the things that make people happy. At one point I felt like I was studying them and devouring so much about these concepts that I thought I deserved some sort of honorary degree! It was also during this time that I happened upon a strategy known as the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE). It wasn’t long after starting to read (like page 2) the ROWE manifesto “[easyazon-link asin=”B0010SKUP6″ locale=”us”]Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution[/easyazon-link]” that I became a devoted disciple of the movement.

If you don’t know about ROWE, I suggest you stop reading this blog immediately and get a copy of WWS. If you’re sticking around, make sure to read it afterwards, but to give you the Cliff’s Notes version, ROWE was conceived by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson when they worked in HR at Best Buy. In an effort to improve Work-Life Balance, they eventually came to the realization that if you manage people’s time, you cannot effectively manage outcomes (results). In the Information Age, most businesses still model themselves on Industrial Age practices, effectively turning the office into a factory. From that realization, it wasn’t long before it was clear to them that all jobs – not just office or IT work – could be ROWEs. Eventually, Ressler and Thompson left Best Buy to create their own consulting company, CultureRx, in order to spread the word to the masses.

For me, the idea of ROWE instantly clicked. I can remember my first job out of college. My busy times revolved around pay periods. Although I did everything ever asked of me and more at that company, I was still a slave to the clock. I can remember feeling guilty for working on some spreadsheets that would improve my efficiency, yet that weren’t technically within my required duties, in order to fill the slower periods, so I wouldn’t die of boredom. I often thought, why can’t I just go home early? Everyone knows I’ll be here until infinity come the next machine order cutoff deadline. I used to come up with ways I would adjust the workplace if I were “Queen of the World”. I believed that strict start and end times were stupid. I am a night person, so getting in before 8 am has always been a challenge for me. I had to ask permission to leave early on nights when I played softball. Then there were those Minnesota snow storms. We’d spend treacherous drives getting into work, or wondering if the boss would “let” us leave early (usually the answer was no). And don’t even get me started on the dress code. I once was given a stern warning because I wore socks to work. Socks! Not trouser socks or nylons, but just regular socks. Oh, the humanity! I knew all of these things were ridiculous and made me feel like a child, but I couldn’t come up with anything better than “core hours” in my own mind. Afterall, I was new to this world of work. What did I know? I mean, paying people according to how many hours one works is so entrenched in our collective psyche, it’s hard to imagine anything else. Yet, I always felt there had to be a better way where only things that mattered were the things that mattered. A way in which useless political games became much harder to play. A true meritocracy had to be out there.

Enter ROWE. When I learned how in an authentic ROWE there are no timecards to punch, and there are no vacation policies… how every day is like Saturday, it all made instant sense, despite that old workplace hard wiring (brainwashing). So, when I discovered ROWE during my crisis of career year of 2007, it was like I could see colors I hadn’t known I couldn’t see before. Suddenly, so many of the things we did at the office made absolutely no sense. I saw so much waste. Wasted time, wasted energy, wasted money. By this time, I worked for the federal government, so that money was also your money. I hate when people say “this is how it’s always been” as an excuse for why something is done a certain way, and this device is used even more in government. Ironically, as much as I saw how much ROWE could improve not only my agency’s performance, and improve my own life, this knowledge probably accelerated my eventual burnout. I hate admitting that, because I don’t want it to be used as an excuse for people to not learn about ROWE, but it is true. I just didn’t want to spend any more time in a world where I spent my life’s currency (time) doing anything but what mattered or made me happy. I made sure to tell everyone I knew about ROWE. It’s hard to impress generally cynical government workers, but I like to think I made a few ripples. I even entered a government contest by writing a white paper on how ROWE could improve the US Intelligence Community (didn’t win… not even close). I really believed (and still believe) it’s a moral duty to shift the current outdated workplace (especially government) into a modern ROWE.

When I finally decided to leave the government it was to go to a place (that shall remain nameless for now) I believed was as close to a ROWE as you can get without being a ROWE. What I learned from that experience was there are no ROWE substitutes. Either you measure an employee’s contributions through outcomes, or you measure their value by time. You cannot do both. If you want to measure employee’s contributions through outcomes, you (managers) also cannot control how they get their work done. You can give them deadlines, and quality benchmarks, but other than that, you must leave them alone, otherwise you are simply doing the same thing the clock does – restricting a persons’ creativity and individuality, also known as micro-managing. I don’t work at that place any more. And now I’m even further from a ROWE than ever, yet I see the tide turning. I’ve followed CultureRx’s successes. Although ROWE is not a telecommuting program, I see more companies opening up that option as well, and I see it as a positive trend. If nothing else they’re trying to recognize that happy employees can give you the world if you let them.

That is why when I read this week about the CEO of Yahoo!’s recent leaked email effectively repealing the company’s telecommuting policy, I’ve been re-energized in my passion for ROWE. I also recently finished reading the follow-up to WWS, [easyazon-link asin=”B00B0H9QWU” locale=”us”]Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It: A Results-Only Guide to Taking Control of Work, Not People[/easyazon-link], and highly recommend you take that one on as well. Like its predecessor, it’s an inspiring read. It’s sad to see Yahoo! Going back towards a century old style of managing their high-tech company, especially at the direction of a woman who I believe took unwarranted criticism when she came back to work only two weeks after starting maternity leave. Tech companies have always been on the forefront of changing the way work is performed in the modern era, and to see a woman who is slightly older than myself embrace such an archaic, old school way of thinking is unfortunate. As Ressler and Thompson frequently say, “Work isn’t a place you go, it’s something that you do.” Once companies like Yahoo! Realize that the only way they can keep the ship from sinking is not by calling for “all hands on desk, er… deck” but by making it clear that what matters is that the hole in the hull be fixed, then leaving them alone to solve the problem. If you can’t trust the people you hire to do the work necessary, why did you hire them in the first place? Just because Ms. Mayer wants to meet with everyone face to face, it doesn’t mean that is the only way of working. If the hole is fixed, who cares where the designer was when they came up with the plans?

I’m a consultant now, and I can say that there is very little chance I will ever commit to a company permanently that isn’t a ROWE. I’ve tried the pseudo ROWE route. It sucked big time. I’d love to own my own business one day, but I’m not sure I have what it takes. I have a detail oriented (control freak) personality, and enjoy spending long periods of time creatively solving problems in a state of flow, or teaching others, but I don’t have the ambition to network and stir buzz to gain the clients. The beauty of a ROWE is that it allows people with a bit lower risk tolerance to live the entrepreneur lifestyle. For me, that is the ultimate dream. I know I can do great work. All I ask is that I’m treated like an adult and allowed to prove it.

I’m sure this is just the beginning on my ROWE-themed blogs. I’m especially looking forward to any questions you may have! ROWE for all!
Cheers,
PersephoneK

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