Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson began CultureRx as the embodiment of their passionate belief that there is a better way to work. Spending their careers as agents of change, Cali and Jody have worked for 20+ years in corporate environment and training related fields. Driven by an intuitive notion that results-focused environments foster productive employees and have a positive effect on overall performance, the team began their work together at Best Buy and experienced a melding of minds that resulted in the creation of the Results-Only Work Environment - ROWE - the ground-breaking idea that is revolutionizing the workplace.
Leading the workshop session, "Leading Talent through Trust: The Best Buy Initiative" at the 2007 FORTUNE Leadership Forum, Cali and Jody will share how they developed a "No Meetings, No Schedules" program for Best Buy, delivering greater flexibility to employees increased employees’ trust of their leadership.
Jody and Cali recently shared their thoughts on leadership and the value of ROWE:
1) Who is the best leader you've encountered during your careers and why?
We realized quickly in our careers that the people that would 'lead us' would not be your typical 'weighted business card' leaders. In fact, if we'd been looking for leadership there and only there, we may have missed the opportunity to learn what leadership is all about.
Leadership means first and foremost having the ability to 'be led'. By listening to the voices of the people around us (and not above us) and carrying their voices with our own beliefs forward, we learned the true meaning of what it takes to lead. Leading is all about advocating and giving the work back. It's all about personal integrity and humility - not only as a value written in on the walls of corporate America. People will follow great leaders.
As we lead from the middle, converting team by team to a "Results Only Work Environment" (ROWE), we found that it was the people's passion for the new lifestyle that in turn spawned hundreds of evangelists that continue to carry the change forward.
A ROWE is an environment where your talent will show up energized, disciplined, fluid, flexible and focused – always ready to deliver the results necessary to drive your business. ROWE is a bold, cultural transformation that permeates the attitudes and operating style of an entire workplace, leveling the playing field and giving people complete autonomy – as long as the work gets done.
The leaders are the people living the ROWE lifestyle - the true leaders of the movement that will de-Dilbertize work in America and around the world. You can Google all of the attributes of effective leadership. Try it sometime and you will be inundated with articles and books on the topic. Did the famous leaders in history read about effective leadership before becoming great leaders?
2) If you could only give one piece of advice to someone taking over your position, what would it be?
Any time you're faced with leading adaptive change, first read: Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading by Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky. It provides a sobering analysis of how organizations connive to oppose change and how leaders get bruised, or even destroyed, in the process. In Ron's words, "When people resist adaptive work, their first goal is to shut down leadership in order to preserve what they have."
Know that as you are leading, many will be trying to shut you down every day. A can-do attitude is essential. In an adaptive journey that is all about challenging the status quo, there is no end to the battles that need to be fought and obstacles that need to be overcome.
There will be moments every day where you'll think, "It would be so much easier to just forget about this and not fight anymore." It's in those moments when you need to dig deep inside and ask yourself if you really believe in the cause. Do you really believe there is a better way to work? Do you really believe a ROWE can impact the quality of family life around the world? Do you really believe people are being lynched in a socially acceptable way in the work environment because they have kids, because they're young or old, or because they just can't play the office politics game? Holding strong to what you believe in day in and day out will help you orchestrate the change that you envision.
Finally, know that most often you will get booed instead of cheered. And know that in the act of leading, you may never hear applause. Ever.
3) What difficulties have you met trying to implement "No Meeting, No Schedules" in Best Buy retail stores? What adjustments have you had to make? Do you remain optimistic that it will work in a retail setting?
At this time, CultureRx and Best Buy have partnered to bring a ROWE to 75% of the corporate employee population at the Richfield, MN headquarters. A ROWE for a retail environment will look and feel significantly different than a ROWE for a corporate environment as retail employees face fundamentally different issues and challenges than corporate employees.
We believe that some of the common retail work practices created based on beliefs about the way retail should operate are stifling not only employees' productivity and engagement, but their ability to effectively serve the customer.
CultureRx plans to remove targeted restrictions, reshaping the foundation of the culture to empower retail employees to make the best decisions for the company and their customers. In a ROWE, management can stop monitoring the hallways (or aisles), and focus their entire energy on the business. All associates are free to use the ROWE lifestyle as a way to harness new relationships between themselves and their work to perform better, focus better and deliver results.
ROWE is not compressed workweek. ROWE is not flextime. ROWE is not telecommuting. ROWE is a bold, cultural transformation that permeates the attitudes and operating style of an entire workplace. The ROWE lifestyle has foundational elements that can, and will work in any work environment.
More details on Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler’s appearance at the 2007 FORTUNE Leadership Forum by clicking here.
I am all in favor of ROWE. In fact, it's what I've been preaching for years. It's exciting to find that someone has actually developed a pathway to get there, and at least one company is giving it a solid try.