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Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: No Schedules, No Meetings, No Joke--the Simple Change That Can Make Your Job Terrific | 
 enlarge | Authors: Cali Ressler, Jody Thompson
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $1.24
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Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 17330
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 1591842034
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.314
EAN: 9781591842033
ASIN: 1591842034
Publication Date: May 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Do you hate cramming all of your errands into the weekend?
Do you resent having to beg permission to watch your kid s weekday soccer game?
Are you tired of seeing people who aren t very good at their jobs get promoted because they arrive early and stay late?
There s got to be a better way and there is! Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson show that everyone benefits when we change the focus from hours to outcomes. It s just that our traditional definition of work Monday through Friday, nine to five doesn t make sense in the always-on global economy.
So, Ressler and Thompson created the Results-Only Work Environment. In a ROWE, you control when, where, and how long you work. As long as you meet your objectives, the way you spend your time is entirely up to you.
Suddenly, work isn t a place you go, it s a thing you do. In a ROWE, there are no mandatory meetings or fixed schedules. You stop doing any activity that wastes time, and no one criticizes you for leaving early or coming in late. If you do your best work at midnight or on Sundays, go for it!
ROWE sounds like a fantasy, but Ressler and Thompson have already made it a reality at Best Buy, a Fortune 100 company. They have proven that ROWE not only makes employees happier but also delivers better results. And now the authors are helping companies implement ROWE nationwide.
Infused with passion and common sense, Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It will change the way you think about your job, your company, and your quality of life. Read it and join the revolution!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
 It isn't that hard to get! Really, it isn't! November 19, 2008
Wave of the Future (Philadelphia, PA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It is telling that the reviews seem to be of two camps. One side enthusiastically embraces the concept, the other is mired in doubts and resistance. This is essentially the reaction predicted in the book by the authors themselves!
To address two complaints:
First, the book has little in the way of practical details. Of course it has little detail. The book is there to give you an idea and for YOU to implement it. My organization functions in almost no way like Best Buy, yet I was able to come up with how this could apply to my company. People have been questioning "Oh, how in the world will we be able to tell that our employees are getting it done?". Clearly you have no idea at this point, so I don't foresee this changing in a ROWE, either. That is a problem for you, the skilled manager, to figure out! This isn't a book about management skills or productivity measurement. If you're already charged with the oversight of employees, you should ALREADY know how to do this. Frankly, it frightens me that there are so many reviewers who don't know how they would measure the results of their employees' work!
Second, the complaints are about the length of the book and the manner in which it is written. So strong is the backlash that someone even registered a domain name in order to complain! Here's the story: the book isn't for upper-management types because ROWE isn't strictly for upper-management types. You've already gone through years of thoughtlessly churning through employees with your mindset. The change has to come from the employees demanding the change. That's why it was written for that level. It's a bit cheerleader-ish, sure, but excitement generated among large groups of employees will get this done, not convincing a couple of ossified managers. And, the length is a bit much. It would be a "better" read at 25 pages. But, in the book's defense, when is the last time someone handed you a pamphlet that you took seriously? Besides, even after 200 pages it is clear that some readers still don't get it.
In closing, I want to note one thing. As a young manager and employee myself (under 30) I think we had all better get used to this idea. This, or something very similar, is coming along the pike very soon to your company. People my age and younger simply will not tolerate the old way of doing things. You will find yourself unable to locate good workers who are willing to sit in a cubicle for their designated period of time anyway. They'll simply cease to exist. Good young workers know their value and won't compromise until they are happy. Even if you do find a group of good little worker bees to sit in their box during their required times, it will be because they are the ones who aren't good enough to demand more out of their work environment and life. If you think managing results in a ROWE is difficult, try doing it instead with low-skilled and unhappy drones because all of your good employees left for firms that treat them like respected adults and colleagues.
Absolutely true, but not much new in it November 13, 2008
A. Falkenberg
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Yes it is absolutely true, we should look at the results not at the hours worked. In fact I never understood the concept of hourly wages in my profession (computer science). The guys who are lame have to put in more hours and even get rewarded ... Everywhere else we get rewarded if we get things done faster (i.e. runner: who gets the medal ?). So my take on this is: give those a reward coming in at 10 and leaving at 4 :)
Anyway I would love to see ROWE more often applied.
 For Upper Management Only! November 6, 2008
Hikari (Lima, OH USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was irresistibly drawn to this book due to its cheeky title; I am embroiled in a workplace situation that sucks, and hoped that this book would have some humorous tips to cope as an employee. This isn't that kind of book. Targeted mostly to CEOs and upper-management types, it presents the concept of the "Results Only Work Enviroment" (ROWE) implemented by the authors at the Best Buy corporate offices. The ROWE model, where the emphasis is placed on flexible productivity rather than the regimented time-clock watching norm gives many reasons now to be envious of Best Buy corporate employees (though presumably their less-fortunate counterparts in the retail sector are still forced to adhere to classic time/management protocols), but as a low-level employee in a more traditional sucky corporate structure there is nothing immediately actionable here to make my job suck less, short of convincing my director and board to adopt the ROWE model. (Ain't gonna happen, in my lifetime or ever!) In order to implement ROWE at your workplace, you'd have to be either the owner or part of the senior management team. This could be useful for business students or those high enough in the power structure to implement ROWE at their companies. For the rest of us, it's a whole lot of wishful thinking, and the title is more than a tiny bit misleading. Refer it to your boss (or his boss) but don't expect to get anything out of this yourself . . .unless, of course, you own the company.
Happy people are productive people...... October 26, 2008
C. A. Hurst (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Treat adults like adults and they'll be more productive?" Who'd a thunk it? Well, Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson did and set out to prove it. While working at Best Buy corporate headquarters they created ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment) where productivity is the coin of the realm.
Where do you work? Doesn't matter. What time of day you work? Don't care. Did you get your stuff done on time, or early? That's what I'm talkin' about!
Sludge. Nope, it's not that goop at the bottom of the coffee pot at the end of the day, it's the snide comments that co-workers make to and about each other that undermine morale and generally piss people off.
Eliminate Sludge, give people the freedom to be responsible and accountable for their own lives and Voila!; you have happy, productive people that improve the performance of your business and increase your bottom line. They've got the stats to prove it.
Get this book. Read it. Act on it. The sooner, the better.
 Work Sucks? So Does This Book. September 30, 2008
L. McElhaney
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Quaint idea, but this book never moves past the philosophical. I kept waiting for more insight into practical application - how to define results that really work, how to handle the inevitable workers who can't manage to results, how to synchronize highly dependent project tasks when time is disregarded, etc. The book also comes off as preachy, as if anyone who doesn't accept it's philosophy out-of-hand is an outdated loser who doesn't want a great work environment. I'd suggest you go to the authors' website and read their white paper and save the time and money on reading the book.
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