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Why ROWE Failed So Much In Companies
There’s a long article on Slate from over the weekend — I think it’s one of their most popular and most shared, all that — about ROWE, or Results-Only Work Environment. Here’s the article. I’ve written about this kind of stuff a ton on this blog — see here and here, for example — so I won’t go super deep into everything (you can browse my other posts if you feel so inclined), but here’s a basic framework.
ROWE is based on the idea that a lot of old-school sales guys talk about: “My job is based on commission. If I don’t sell, I don’t eat.” This is based on the oldest-school motto of “eat what you kill,” which was quite literally how the world worked in its earliest incarnation. Under ROWE, you can choose to work from home whenever you want — with no vetting required. You can take 30 days of vacation if you want — with no vetting required. You can disappear for weeks at a time — and no one should be asking after you. All that matters is that you get your work done. There’s a series of metrics tied to your role — say, 10 percent sales growth or 50,000 new customers — and if you hit it, you get retained, paid, and possibly promoted. If you don’t hit it, there are consequences. Simple, right?
The obvious advantage here is that workplaces shouldn’t be standardized. In a…
