I strongly believe in freedom, trust and accountability at work. These beliefs and values have led me down the path of research into and ultimately certification in the Results-Only Work Environment™. As I speak and write about ROWE™, I face many misconceptions and fears about it. Let’s clear some of them up.
Myth # 1: ROWE™ is a work from home program
As the name says, a ROWE™ is all about RESULTS. If you can get results, and meet your objectives by working from home, then all be it! If there are meetings that are more effective and meaningful face to face, you go to them. If you serve customers face-to-face, you still have to be there to do so. If your work is with materials or resources that are only available at the workplace, you go there to do that work. The point is, you’re an adult, you know what you’re responsible for, so you decide how you can achieve your objectives best.
Myth # 2: ROWE™ means people no longer collaborate
Collaboration is essential in many, if not most, roles today. In a Results-Only Work Environment™, we start with identifying the ultimate customer, then identify shared goals and clarify individual objectives so that we are all focused on serving the customer in the most optimal way. This relentless focus on objectives and on the shared nature of goals helps teams to collaborate more, not less. In fact, in a ROWE™, people are often more open to finding solutions for the best of all, since they see how helping each other out ultimately helps themselves out.
Myth # 3: In a ROWE™ there are no managers
In a ROWE™, managers are not eliminated, but their focus is changed. They become Results Coaches. Managers no longer focus on managing people and worrying about how they spend their time. They focus on the work itself. Feedback and development are enhanced in a ROWE™, as leaders work with their direct reports to identify challenges, solve them, and move forward to serve the ultimate customer more positively. In fact, in our ROWE™ training process, we start with understanding your leaders’ capabilities as far as feedback and developing others, and provide leadership development and tools to help them do so positively in conjunction with ROWE™ training.
Myth # 4: A ROWE™ only works in office and high tech environments
If you are able to be clear about your objectives and your customer’s needs, a ROWE™ works everywhere. In a retail or banking environment, for example, rather than a manager posting a schedule, employees may determine their hours together, ensuring there is always the optimal coverage to serve their customers. In fact, one of the largest ROWE™ organizations in Canada is ATB Financial, an Alberta-based banking and financial services company.
Myth # 5: In a ROWE™ you have no idea whether people are actually working
In a ROWE™, work is not measured by “seat time”, but by the outcome of the work. You may not know when or where the work got done, but once you go through our process of setting clear objectives for everyone, you’ll know that the work was done and the result of it. So often today, leaders are worrying about and focused on the wrong measures of work. It doesn’t make any sense to reward people for working longer on a task than others who may complete the task just as effectively, but more efficiently, yet that is often what we do by rewarding people for staying late or working longer hours rather than for completing the work well.
Myth # 6: In a ROWE™ you lose the human connection
If you know me, you know that if this was true, I could never support a ROWE™! I am an extreme advocate of humanizing work, of genuine caring and trust within teams. In a ROWE™, trust must exist. People are treated like adults. Conversations are no longer about babysitting. Working in a ROWE™, relationships are critical. In our process, while training you on going ROWE™, we place a huge focus on building trust and authenticity at all levels, so that people connect more deeply, based on shared Values and genuine caring. We usually augment ROWE™ training with our programs and tools for Authentic Leadership, Shared Purpose, and Courageous Conversations.
A Results-Only Work Environment™ is a lot of things. It is an engaging way to get work done. It is a balance of 100% accountability and 100% autonomy. It is a way of working that feels scary, especially to those who feel they are giving up control (or the illusion of it). It is a challenge to the norms we’ve used at work for decades, which no longer make sense in today’s world. A ROWE™ is the workplace of the future – where humans proactively plan their work, act in an agile fashion in response to today’s continuous change, and make adult decisions on how, when and where to meet their objectives. It just makes sense!
CultureRx® is the owner of the Results-Only Work Environment™ and ROWE™ trademarks, copyrights and other intellectual property which identify the innovative management methodology. No direct or indirect use of the intellectual property, trademarked or copyrighted names, materials or any other aspects of ROWE™ may be used by consultants, or to describe any work environment without express written consent through certification by CultureRx®. Unauthorized use is prohibited.
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