Book Review: Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It
Title: Book Review: Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It
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Filed in archive Book Reviews by Justin McHenry on July 22, 2008
to the clock, working by rules that are more fit to the 19th century then today. We work all week and then have to spend the weekend running errands until Sunday comes and that familiar dread creeps into the pits of our stomach. Even if our work life offers us some time flexibility, using that flexibility too religiously may lead to you being labeled as less than dedicated, which then leads to being passed over for promotions, while the guy who stays at work from 7AM to 6PM even though he does a lousy job and never gets his work done is ultimately rewarded purely on the basis of "face time." I think this is a fairly succinct summary of the case that Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson make in their new book Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It. Ressler and Thompson were instrumental in the introduction of the Results-Only Work Environment, or ROWE, at Best Buy's corporate offices, and this book makes the case for why a ROWE is good for employees and smart business for all companies. And of course it offers many pointers on how a ROWE could be set up at your company.
As the name suggests, a Results-Only Work Environment is one in which you aren't judged by getting to work on time or talking a lot in meetings or leaving late, but instead you are judged by the quality of your work. Get the work done well, and on time, and the rest is up to you. That means you choose when you're at work and when you're not, not occasionally but always. Don't feel like showing up today? Don't. Want to sleep in and get your work done after dinner tonight? By all means. Want to follow your favorite band across the country? Go for it.
If it sounds like chaos, Ressler and Thompson make the case that it just takes some getting used to. They compare it to college - you do what you want, when you want, and as long as the work is done on time and done well, you are rewarded. In the work setting, the only difference is that you do more communicating as far as where you are and where you're going to be if someone needs you, so everyone else can get their work done on their own schedules, too. But no one has the right to pull rank on others' time, and no one has the right to "Sludge" someone else by commenting on how they choose to go about their work, including when they come into the office, when they aren't at a meeting, etc.
This doesn't mean there's no hierarchy or that there's no way to gauge who is doing a good job versus who is not. It means that being the "boss" is less about catching people daydreaming at their desks and more about managing results. The book's premise is that the low achievers actually get spotlighted easier in a ROWE because they can't fake it by simply putting in the hours or kissing up to the boss - they're either getting their work done or they're not.
While I think this is how the perfect office would run, I have some caveats, concerns, misgivings, whatever you want to call them. First, a ROWE seems to be only for white-collar workers. This is really for office environments - if you're working at a Best Buy store, for example, you'd need to be scheduled; you can't say "I'll sell stereos from 9PM to 1AM tonight."
Second, while I understand and appreciate the fact that a ROWE treats you like an adult and lets you schedule your work and life in the way that is best for you, I still somewhat question the idea that everything is OK as long as "the work gets done." That notion seems to equate work with a stack of papers that has a beginning and end, and when you've finished, you're done. While it may be true that individual projects include distinct roles for many people, I think it's also true that work has some intangible times, times when you're not working on a project per se, but you may be laying the groundwork for future work, or boning up on industry news, or whatever.
In my work experience, there were definitely slow times when I felt like I just wanted to walk out the door, but at other times those slow periods were used to catch up on paperwork, or do one of those "nice-to-have" projects that always gets pushed to the side when the "work" is heavy and demanding. If it's all about getting the "work" done, when are you (or anyone else) doing the industry research or learning to use Excel or whatever else you might do to improve yourself and/or your company when the "work" isn't beating down your door? If we're all saying, "I'm done" when our piece of a project feels finished and no one is currently calling for help, do we put ourselves in the frame of mind that a company is only about urgent projects and not about preparing for future success?
Ressler and Thompson might have a perfectly good answer for that, so I won't push that point too hard (although I would like to know). In fact, I would highly recommend that every company and every manager read Work Sucks, regardless of whether or not they decide to go for a full-on ROWE. Even the thought process that says "These people are adults, they don't need me watching when they show up, when they leave, and when they're taking a personal call during work hours" is something more workplaces should embrace. (And to be fair, many do, whether they use a fancy name for it or not.) Give it a read and see what you can take away to make your work suck less.
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Mr Wong
