UPDATE 090228: An idea has been bouncing around in my head for months. I’ve finally committed it to words. It’s the opposite of the unacknowledged reality about the ROWE approach: ROWE won’t go anywhere, because their sales pitch focuses on what you can get from a ROWE environment, not what you can give to your work. Our philosophy is also results-focused, but it also acknowledges the reality of business. Check out “Working on the F.A.R.M.“
A Results-Only Work Environment is a great idea. But the book sucks.
So much is wrong with the authors’ approach that I’m at a loss as to where to begin.
- I thought I ordered a book about ROWE. What I received was a calling card of feel-good case studies and vague “our productivity increased by X%”-type testimonials. If I wanted to read Chicken Soup for the Worker’s Soul I would have picked it out of the garbage where it was rightfully thrown. The authors “Cali and Jody” owe me twenty bucks.
- Part of the book’s tag line is “No Schedules, No Meetings — No Joke”, but due to the complete lack of detail, the tag line should be: “No Tips, No Detail — No Help.”
- They have completely missed their target audience. Because ROWE originated from within Best Buy, the authors assume that that will be the method under which the idea will propagate. Nuh-uh. If they had targeted their material for managers and business owners with specific, bottom-line metrics it would spread much, much faster. Most business owners won’t have the time to implement it themselves, so they would gladly, if convinced, hire a consultant to do it.
- Instead, the authors have dumbed down a great idea into a childish masses-against-the-Man approach. This may resonate with some back-corner cubicle outcast, but anyone with half an ounce of ambition will be turned off. Even more important, if a manager or owner does become curious, the antagonistic vibe on the website will kill the curiosity.
- The 13 Guideposts aren’t guideposts. It’s a silly, repetitive list even less helpful than “Lose Weight in Six Easy Steps.”
- Not only did they waste my money, they wasted my time, something they purport to value. Although the book was obviously empty from page one, I hoped for more and struggled through. Conclusion? They took a ten-page memo and turned it into a 200-page book.
- They are obviously scrambling for a business model, and it’s handicapping ROWE’s development. It started with the shiny-happy website and a “coming soon” for the book. Just as the book was released, they offered a 2-hour presentation in Minneapolis for $450 per person. (That has now changed to $149…) Then they offered a ROWE Launch Kit for $4,500. (That has now changed to $899…)
- Dear Cali and Jody: Best Buy employs 140,000 people, but less than 500 are following your blog. In contrast, 37signals is a 10-person software company with 90,000 blog subscribers. And they publish their philosophy for free. Do you think you could be missing the point? Maybe your deployment is a little dated? Maybe the work world is changing, but you haven’t noticed?
Even worse, the authors condone, in not-so-subtle ways, lying and bad work ethics as accepted methods to get through a work day. The premise is that it’s a big, bad corporate world out there and you need to do whatever you can to make it through. The gist is “It’s not your fault you did that. You had no choice.”
- Page 11: “I’ve been late to work for the past three days… Then I see it. Traffic backed up by two stoplights… I’m positive I’ll be fired… I reach for the phone, knowing what I have to do. I fight with myself because what I’m about to do feels awful. I convince myself that if I don’t do it, I will lose my job… I get his voicemail… ‘Jim, I’m just not feeling well today. I don’t think that I’ll be able to make it in. I was up all night with a fever. [Cough, clearing throat.] I’ll see you tomorrow.’“
Are you serious? Being late three days in a row and lying on the fourth isn’t a traffic problem; it’s a character problem. ROWE ain’t gonna fix that no-how.
- Page 100: “Socially unacceptable excuses are the truths about our time that we dare not utter.”
So let’s lie? How about being a stand up person instead?
If your job actually sucks as much as “Cali and Jody” think all-work-but-ROWE does, then it’s up to YOU to change it. You control your life; your boss doesn’t. You’re where you are because you chose to be there — YOU sat in the interview, and YOU accepted the offer. And you can improve your life a whole lot better by abandoning the office politics, lying and deception.
Stand up, be honest, and go after whatever it is you truly want. Begging your boss and company to do it for you is a cop-out and only a temporary fix.
Here are the sole 95 words of concrete hints (from Why Work Sucks) that ROWE may actually be a good idea:
- Page 85: “Before we started working in a Results-Only Work Environment we could do ten, maybe twelve courses a month. We recently put through forty-three courses out in a single month.“
My only contention is that the speaker should have said “Before we started working in a ROWE, we [chose] to do ten…”
- Page 85: “I just set my goal’s so everything is done three days ahead of time.”
- Page 94: “…the execution of anything worthwhile requires diligence, attention, effort, and time… Just because [there's no such thing as being] late doesn’t mean [there's no such thing as being] lame.“
ROWE is a great idea. But its creators are putting their consulting income ahead of the idea itself. In an age where “open source” is the new standard, “Cali and Jody’s” approach is a step backward that will ultimately limit how far and wide ROWE will spread. Not only that, but if a consultant hides the details of their idea, it’s pretty certain that the idea is SMALL, and you don’t need their help to implement it.
I spent twenty bucks on their book and it didn’t deliver. As a direct result, I will NEVER hire them and NEVER buy their products. Neither should you.
More info:
- www.culturerx.com – The Best Buy spin-off for their ROWE consulting business. Big on warm, fuzzy fantasy; short on detail. “Koom Bye Yah” songbook sold separately.
- The book: Why WORK SUCKS and How To Fix It, by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson
- A better book (for free): Getting Real, by 37signals
UPDATE August 11th: In stark contrast to Why Work Sucks, David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done, reveals him to be a prime example of two things:
1) A consultant with a novel, genuine, BIG idea; and
2) A consultant confident enough in the scope of his idea that he knows publishing it will lead to more business, not less.
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Nice wordpress theme you got going here.
The getting real methodology only works if everyone in the team is on the same page. I handed this pdf printout to my manager at my current job. Well it is still sitting in his office with dust on it.
Working in the web industry here in vancouver I have learned some valuable things.
If your project manager thinks he knows more than you, you have a big problem. Even more so if he cannot even build anything.
Never trust a coworker who has an answer for everything (does not say they do not know).
If your designer is too much of an artist (cannot do things the clients way), find a new one ASAP.
Never outsource to offshore developers. If they go in mess your server up, they are not in Canada and you are screwed legally (my ex-boss in Toronto is going to learn this soon). Cheaper is not better!
If a potential client even questions the cost, WALK AWAY.
CMS web solutions start at $4000. Time can be spent climbing instead of getting ripped off. (thanks 37 signals on picking your clients).
Never, ever work for free!
My first interview here was for Bestbuy.ca. They needed a web-dev guy to maintain their site. In the interview (which was conducted by 3 people at once), they had no clue what was going on. Admitted to me that those nice Flash ads on the main page use text files in the backend. So they are dumb and won’t learn, so shop elsewhere.
After spending my first year here working for Nokia, I now work at a university. Here is my day job project: http://www.pims.math.ca
Next year I will be back in the Bow Valley area (Calgary), to start my Media Company.
Besides learning to be a Drupal developer-themer, I have learned what “not” to do when running a web company.
I have become a one man show these days. css-xhtml-php-mysql
If you want something done right, do it yourself.
This will be the foundation of my success in Calgary.
Sorry, Mike. Not my intention. I thought that the URL would be self-explanatory, but you’re right, I should explain. I’ll revisit your site and expand.
Scott,
Rather than visiting my blog, leaving a URL here and leaving, why not at least leave a little comment, like for why I think ROWE is not a good idea, visit ….
At glance, your comment looked like a spammer.
-Mike
Scott: As I noted on my blog, thanks for the extra effort. I’ve not read your post yet, but definitely look forward to doing it soon. On the surface, a results-only-work-environment sounds idea. As you noted in the comments (on my site), any good idea can be steered in the wrong direction — when the proponents go off course.
-Mike
I can’t speak to the book (cause I haven’t read it) but I understand that sometimes people’s business models get in the way of good ideas. That’s valid.
I do think that a company that isn’t willing to open source this idea and just do it on concept alone probably isn’t ready for ROWE anyway. Not to belittle the book or the seminars but it seems like the concept is fairly straight-forward and the pitfalls are fairly obvious. On top of that, it is going to have to be modified to fit into you company anyway so any out of the box solution doesn’t work. I already heard about some of the difficulty they were having with putting it in at the store level and the modifications that are necessary.
All that being said, I think good ideas are still good ideas even if their inventors aren’t perfect
Thanks, Lance. I agree that “good ideas are still good ideas even if their inventors aren’t perfect”, but the way that they have presented their book is misleading. If they wanted to be honest and straight up, they would have “only anecdotes and feel-good nonsense herein” on the cover. Then book sales would reflect the book’s actual worth.
Scott, as much as I love the idea of ROWE and admire Cali & Jody (I also like the book), I think that you made some very valid points.
I agree that managers and business owners probably won’t be impressed by the book. But since I’m a hopeless optimist, lets say that ROWE started as some kind of underground movement and that considering this, the book should be targeting the right crowd.
Scott,
I have to say that I thoroughly disagree with your opinion of the book.
It is worth far more than the $20 price tag and gives plenty of information on how to implement a ROWE. Maybe you were looking for something that provided a whole list of “how” answers in an outline format.
Every company will implement a ROWE in its own way and to fit its own culture. Cali and Jody have given us a fantastic roadmap but we have to drive our own car to reach the destination.
Their book is completing changing every aspect of our business in an extremely positive way.
I’m not sure that I follow your thinking concerning their lack of providing “free” knowledge. They have a blog (free of charge) which I find very informative.
I’m a business owner and I found everything about the book and their website to be positive. If a business owner of a professional knowledge firm is truly turned off by their message then I suspect that knowledge firm will not be around for the long-term.
By the way, you’re completely missing the point regarding efficiency…..efficiency is the least powerful of all in your list (excellence, quality, effectiveness and efficiency). In fact, in a knowledge worker environment and in life efficiency can be very counter-productive.
@John: Thanks for your post. Definitely good to get another business owner’s thoughts on ROWE. I am surprised that you are so positive about the book, but I’m glad that it’s working for you.
Our business is 99% there as far as full mobility goes, so perhaps I expected too much from the book in thinking that it would offer any insight or useful advice.
In stark contrast to the ROWE book, David Allen has written an incredibly detailed book called Getting Things Done. GTD is an incredible resource and a prime example of a consultant who is confident enough in his business model and the scope of his ideas to lay it all out there rather than the all-too-common consultant practice of hiding a small idea behind case studies and feel-good nonsense. If you compare the two books side by side, I think you’ll see why GTD is such a great book and why WWS is not.
Finally, I am shocked that a business owner would downplay the importance of efficiency. Either we have different definitions of what efficiency means or our businesses are different enough to allow you to disregard it. I know that in our business, if we were to disregard efficiency we wouldn’t be around very long. I’m very curious what kind of business, and what kind of life, can afford that luxury.
Scott,
The title of your blog sucks. You say yourself that ROWE is a good idea. Perhaps you should look into that.
There’s always gotta be haters.
Wow, James. Truly visionary commenting. Truly a grand contribution to the discussion. As you say, there’s always gotta be haters.
Okay, I’ll ask a legitimate question then. Why did you title your blog “whyrowesucks” when you state at least twice that you think ROWE is a good idea?
Wouldn’t it have been more prudent to name your blog “whycaliandjodysuck” or “whythebookworksuckssucks” or something like that?
I’m seriously interested in your answer.
@James. Thanks for coming back. Registering “whyrowesucks.com” was intentionally provocative. The title of their book is Why WORK SUCKS and How to Fix It. “Cali and Jody” did an excellent job of describing why a typical, stereotyped work environment would suck. They offered nothing whatsoever for “how to fix it.”
In my opinion, it was a short-sighted marketing ploy, probably encouraged by their publisher. After buying the book and suffering through their anecdotes, I felt ripped off, and so I felt whyrowesucks was justified.
Of your other domain suggestions, I think the first would be too personal, and the second not clear nor strong enough.
Thanks for the question. In comparison, check out David Allen’s Getting Things Done. He’s a consultant as well, but his idea is big enough and he’s confident enough in his work that he can lay out his whole system and still have the faith that it’ll create work, not decrease it. I think if you compare the two books, you’ll see what I mean, and why “Cali and Jody” are inadvertently handicapping ROWE.
UPDATE August 11th: In stark contrast to Why Work Sucks, David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done, reveals him to be a prime example of two things:
1) A consultant with a novel, genuine, BIG idea; and
2) A consultant confident enough in the scope of his idea that he knows publishing it will lead to more business, not less.
I disagree! The book explains, as you said, why work sucks. The “how to fix it part” is by implementing ROWE. So, the book does live up to its title. I agree that it would have been nice to see more details on how to implement a ROWE or some of the metrics used to determine that it was successful at Best Buy, but I don’t think that was the point. The point of the book was to inspire people to think about changing their entire way of thinking about work. The annecdotes were in there so that people in their own places of business would say to themselves, “Yeah! That happened to me!” and then realize how wrongheaded our current work model is. In short, the book was meant to inspire a revolution, not be a detailed implementation plan. I for one, was inspired.
Additionally, your comments about workers being “stand up” individuals or liers, or having no character… that’s all well and good. I agree people should be honest, but you’re not being honest if you think that pretty much every human in the history of work hasn’t told a white lie at some time or another. The system, being centered around face time and putting in hours, creates that animal. Its like saying if only we can change human nature… If results were all that mattered, people’s base instincts (self-preservation) wouldn’t be as much of an issue. Or at least, they wouldn’t feel the need to lie about them.
Well, Scott, if you want to talk about feeling ripped off, how about someone plugging their web site all around the internet on other people’s blogs without leaving a comment…
That’s how I stumbled across your blog. I thought you were going to give me some insights as to why ROWE really doesn’t work.
Instead, I got the rantings and ravings of some guy who employs the same shady marketing tactics as the very people he’s criticizing.
Another shameless attempt at getting internet hits. It’s interesting what some people will stoop to…
@Mary: Thanks for your comments. Very well put. I’m glad that someone found the book valuable. It was too general and bereft of detail for my liking, but it’s good if it can cause some inspiration and get things moving.
I’m thinking now that it probably depends on where people are at. If I were working in a big city cubicle-esque atmosphere, then I may have found the book more helpful, perhaps even just supportive. As someone who is looking to implement a ROWE in our office, the book, for me, just didn’t cut it. And as a small business person, I’m not going to shell out $899 for the kit or fly to Minneapolis for the seminar. I’ll be developing our own ROWE system in the future and posting about it here.
Thanks again, Mary. All the best.
@James: With respect to posting just a domain name, please let me know where you linked from and then I’ll surf back and comment.
Also James, this is the third time you’ve commented, and obviously you don’t like my approach. REgsitering whyrowesucks.com was intended to provoke a reaction because my suspicion is that the book was intentionally vague and any business model that deceives its potential customers rubs me the wrong way. Compare WWS to anything by Seth Godin, and especially to Getting Things Done by David Allen and you’ll see the huge difference in what consultants produce when they are confident in the depth of their idea.
My approach obviously rubs you the wrong way too. My intent was to warn off people thinking about buying the book. If they want feel-good anecdotes, it’s worth the money. If they want concrete ROWE implementation details, it isn’t.
Scott,
To continue the conversation about effective versus efficient, here is an article you may find interesting.
We should probably start another thread about that subject since it is not totally on focus with ROWE (although it definitely can be).
http://www.verasage.com/index.php/community/comments/pigs_productivity_and_purpose
Hey Scott great post. I actually really loved the book, and as a GTD fan, I also love David Allen. However, efficiency and effectiveness are not the same thing and I’m now more of a student of Tim Ferriss (4HWW).
I agree that the book could be more prescriptive, but I found it gave me the motivation to try and make this change in my company.
I think what John was saying re: efficiency is that it is far more important to be effective than efficient. If a company is doing the wrong things efficiently, it is still doing the wrong things. I spent 6 years in the U.S. Navy, and became expert on doing the wrong things efficiently! It took me a few years in the commercial world to learn to do things effectively.