Title – Why Work Sucks and How To Fix It

Media – Book

Authors: Cali Ressler & Jody Thompson

I had been waiting for this book to be released after reading about it on Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Work Week Blog. As a manager in a corporate environment I have been been slowly subverting the usual ways of looking at “work”.

Think about it. (some sweeping generalisations coming but stick with me)

Offices work using the same tools, hierarchies and focus that have been in place for hundreds of years. When people moved from the land to centralised industrial work places (and we can go back further to serfdom and slavery) the fact that work was a) dangerous, b) unpleasant and c) allocated to people as young as 7, meant the need to have a supervisor standing over the worker (with a stick) to ensure they worked. Work hours were dictated by how much light was needed to complete the task, light was dictated by sunlight hours, and time suddenly became the focus of work rather than the task at hand.

No one wanted to work, they had to work.

Things have changed. The majority of tasks are no longer life threatening; technology has simplified and eased the burden of most of us. We have electric light! Telephones! Internet!

Yet we still work to the clock with a supervisor standing over us with a stick….

Why Work Sucks touches on a new way of thinking about work. ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) is the goal and using the example of Best Buy who implemented ROWE over a period of years the book covers views and ideas that came out of that change.

Despite working in a corporate environment, the idea of a ROWE is not alien to me. In fact, it seems absolutely logical, let’s see if you think the same way.

Workers in a ROWE do not work to the clock. They have very clear tasks with very clear deadlines and work they way they want to work to complete those tasks.

Using a non-work example that everyone should be able to identify with.

Remember back to high school or university when you were given a period of time to write and essay. You knew what the essay had to be about and you knew when you had to hand it in, everything else was up to you.

Knowing how you worked best, you may have knocked that essay over in the first day at the library and used the rest of your time to go out with friends. Or you may have done a little a day at a time at a coffee shop, or you may have left it all to the last minute and did it from home. If the essay was of a good enough standard then you received a good mark, it didn’t matter or depend on when or where you performed the task.

Now apply this to the work environment.

Employees are given very clear tasks with very clear expectations for what the result should be. There are no core hours, no need for desk time, no schedules.

Now I know that there will be many of you that will shake your head and say this just won’t work in your area/industry. And in some it won’t, a nurse can’t just look after her patients whenever she feels like it for example. Yet there will be parts of her job that she will be able to move to ROWE. Look at HR and performance reviews, expense paperwork, ordering of supplies etc etc….

Back to the book.

The first thing that struck me was that it is only around 200 pages long…in biggish print. Do not expect depth as the view in most parts is from several thousand feet. If you are looking at instructions on how exactly to implement you will not find it here. As a worker you might have been looking for how to create groundswell to bring this into your company, this is not covered either.

In fact it is not until the last page in the book that all becomes clear (internet marketers take note). The last page includes a link to, surprise surprise, the authors’ company CultureRX (they have become consultants) who will help you bring ROWE to your work place. I just read the longest sales letter I have ever read ….without realising it till the very end. Nice work ladies!

As an idea generator and a look at what future work places will be I heartily recommend the book. My imagination ran wild and I have left the book laying around “seductively” so my fellow managers are now discussing the ideas inside. If you an employee this would make a great gift for your manager (if they are open minded) or for a colleague (if your manager is not open minded) so you can start a movement within your workplace to a more logical way of working.