Comments on: No Schedules, No Meetings—Enter Best Buy’s ROWE – Part 2

By: James NomadRip

James NomadRip — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:37:50 +0000

It would be an astonishing change of events to actually work for a company that truly practiced these principles. I could never find one. Even those companies I loved and wanted to work for made it too unbearable with the micro-managing nonsense.

The scariest part is through their constant time-wasting, they have no idea how much more profitable they could be if they actually went to a ROWE-type basis instead of the old-school system.

It would be hard to go work for another one of those type of companies.

By: Kristjan-Olari Leping

Kristjan-Olari Leping — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:54:54 +0000

I have been actually always using similar management culture in my own businesses. It is really efficient ( I can talk about small businesses with no experience about big corporations), but the problem is that for many people that kind of a culture does not fit. It requires the employees a great deal of self-motivation and many people just cannot manage it. Many workers are expecting the traditional 9 to 5 mode and for them it is easier to discipline themselves to work while they are in the office. The result is tha the quit rates for the newly hired employees tend to be very high. I do not use fixed pay systems and therefore people, who cannot fit into that kind of system cannot earn sufficient income. However, those who get used to that kind of management culture find it very motivating and work productively.

By: Uno

Uno — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:30:29 +0000

Some comments.

1. ROWE = Sales. Sales people have been living in a “results-only” world forever. That is why most career sales people would never do anything else. Sales people can do whatever they like, whenever they like, as long as they are bringing in $$.

2. ROWE = Accountability. In a results driven position you must take 100% accountability for you work and results. This is very difficult for many managers and employees so they prefer “responsibility” over “accountability”.

3 Acountability vs. Responsibility. The difference between these 2 words has been discussed in management for over 100 years. This stuff is not new. Under capitalism, ROWE is not always the optimum way to maximize shareholder value. Under communism, ROWE makes more sense.

Just a thought – How much do you want to bet that Tim does not pratice ROWE with his low paid workers in India?

Just a thought – Tim pays little of no US taxes for these workers, they have no health care, they take jobs away from Americans and local school budgets here in America suffer while Tim “hangs” in Japan on the US taxpayer’s dime.

I enjoy TIm’s blog, but there are 2 sides to every coin. We are enamoured by Tim’s exploits because his “exploits” new communications technolgoy for his own gain and bypassed established social systems, gaining great advantages, like US taxes. – Tim is just a classic, talented capitalist.

Tim “Oil Man” Ferris has learned to leverage this new “free & untaxed” global captial, so that he gets excess returns and does not have to work as much as the rest of us.

Nothing wrong with it, but it is not a new concept, trust me.

By: Peter Braswell

Peter Braswell — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:01:40 +0000

Tim,
Great post! I work at Cisco. Since we’re severely global, most of us work from home. The “sludge” as mentioned in the article still tends to creep in sometimes. “I see you weren’t on IM until after 10am, must be nice!”. Regarding meetings, unfortunately they’re still alive and well, even as a Teleworker. Funny thing I’ve noticed: If a meeting is scheduled for 1 hour, it goes 1 hour. If it’s scheduled for 1.5 hours, guess what? It’s insane! I’ve been trying to put the book into practice and so far, so good.

By: phraedus

phraedus — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:50:24 +0000

This article does not at any time mention ethics or values, and I was drawing attention to that.

My point to clarify is that the principles of doing whatever it takes are dangerous. Success, shouldn’t come at the cost of ethics, which is an unmeasurable value, and according to the article, should be ignored

Working in the way people want is a different matter altogether.

I’m not saying that Enron and Rowe are related. Enron did exactly as you said, whatever it took to get the results. If Enron was a ROWE, then it would have been far worse.