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Reading up on ROWE

Posted on June 8th, 2011 at 9:21pm in Business - 1 comment
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This year at South by Southwest, I attended a session called Rebel in a Polyester Sash: Rehabbing Corporate Culture (you can listen on the SXSW site and I encourage you to do so), given by Jessica Lawrence, former CEO of the Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council in California.

As I sat in the session, I was impressed and taken aback by the ideas she presented about a Results-Only Work Environment. As I spend my days working in an old, mid-sized nonprofit organization, I have experienced first-hand many of the spirit-crushing realities of these types of organizations and identified immediately with Jessica as she spoke about how the Girl Scouts were when she came on board and later became CEO.

The core changes that Jessica implemented were from the book, Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson. After returning home, I purchased several copies of the book and distributed them to some of my coworkers, but I had yet to actually begin reading it for myself. I was excited to get started, but wasn’t able to find the time to get into it.

Enter vacation.

Last week, as I started my two-week vacation at the beach, I brought Why Work Sucks with me and began to read it. I’m about half way through now, and I’m encouraged by the ideas Cali and Jody present. While at first the ROWE sounds like a dream state that can only be realized by Silicon Valley startups and freelancers, they present lots of evidence and experience from their work at Best Buy, where they devised the Results-Only Word Environment and brought it to fruition in the Best Buy corporate headquarters.

I’m excited to keep reading through the book and hopefully work to implement the ROWE at least in my own business and possibly in the nonprofit where I spend my days.

For now, I’d definitely encourage you to check out Jessica’s session, get a copy of Why Work Sucks and also visit GoROWE.com for more information.

As I’ve said on Twitter before, thanks so much for the inspiration Jessica and also for all the hard work Cali and Jody put into shaping and articulating the ROWE.