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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
 
 
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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 [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Cali Ressler (Author), Jody Thompson (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)


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Book Description

May 29, 2008
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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Editorial Reviews

Review

“If you work, you need this book! Cali and Jody share the secrets of the most radical workplace experiment the Fortune 500 have ever seen. Want 35% greater productivity while going to the movies on a Wednesday afternoon or taking Fridays off? Make the switch from hours to outcomes.”
—Timothy Ferriss, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek

“ROWE is a chance for everyone to learn a better way to work. It encourages people to contribute rather than just show up and grind out their days.”
—Brad Anderson, CEO, Best Buy (from the Foreword)

“Now, this changes everything. Buy this book. Act on what you read.”
—Cindy Froggatt, author of Work Naked

“This is like TiVo for your work.”
BusinessWeek

“It is a fundamental shift away from ‘face time’ or ‘chair time’ to just one consideration: Did the employee get the job done?”
Minneapolis Star–Tribune

“The freedom, employees say, is changing their lives. They don’t know if they work fewer hours—they’ve stopped counting—but they are more productive.”
Time

“A remarkably persuasive and mind-bending book. Family-friendly, too.”
—Joan Blades, cofounder MomsRising.org and Moveon.org

About the Author

Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson are the founders of CultureRx, a company that promotes their passionate belief that there is a better way to work. They met at Best Buy, where they first created the Results-Only Work Environment. They live with their husbands and children in the Twin Cities.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover (May 29, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1591842034
  • ASIN: B001OMHV0K
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #529,550 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By EMM
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Solid concept, well-written in an entertaining style, but the content is pretty straight-forward and could have easily been 25 pages versus 180 pages. For those from the traditional workplace, you'll find fear and reassurance alternately as you make your way through the stories of the ROWE environment. Ultimately, the book provides emotional reassurance to people ready to take up the mantle of this new style.
The book is simply 'Work wherever, whenever and however you want as long as you produce the desired results. The hardest part being Sludge, the desire to judge co-workers by how long or how much they are in the office working.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I can not recommend this book highly enough.

Cali and Jody have a done a wonderful job of sharing with us what the "work environment" should and can be.

I had the good fortune of starting my own consulting/training at 25. My three partners and I grew the company to 180 employees. Like in Cali and Jody's Results Only Work Environment (ROWE), a key was TRUST. My partners and I trusted each other, we trusted our employees, and our employees trusted us and each other. Everyone worked hard, had fun, and, for the most part, thrived professionally and personally. We were a family.

At the beginning of the book I thought a ROWE sounded wonderful, could work in small entrepreneurial organizations, but I was skeptical a ROWE could develop in larger organizations. As I progressed though the book my skepticism diminished.

Cali and Jody clearly state their case;
* the importance of RESULTS over time worked
* the power of INDIVIDUAL CONTROL
* the impact of negative comments, aka SLUDGE
* the 13 GUIDEPOSTS that make a ROWE
* stories and insights from Best Buy employees working in a ROWE.

You owe it to yourself, your coworkers, company and family to read this book. I suggest you read it with a "why not" attitude. You may want to read it quickly, think about it for a week or two assimilating the benefits of a ROWE and then read it again when the concept seems less radical.

As Jody and Cali point out, a ROWE can't be mandated from the top down, it comes from the bottom up and grows organically throughout an organization. You could be the Jody and Cali in your organization.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Best Buy's journey to a Results-Only Work Environment is a provactive real-life story that shatters our assumptions about how work gets done (assumptions that might have made sense for an industrial-age workplace, BUT not today's knowledge-based economy). Ressler and Thompson make the case with humor by showing us how ingrained and outdated some of our work notions are and they provide powerful stories from Best Buy employees about how their lives, both professionally and personally, improved dramatically under ROWE. But that's not where the story ends. Not only did employees' lives improve, but so did Best Buy's bottom line (through increased productivity and retention).

At the end of the day ROWE is not a corporate program or package, but an effort to challenge our notions through "Eradicating Sludge" (as Ressler and Thompson fondly call it). Many companies have taken small-steps to address the challenges of the 21st century workplace (experiments with telecommuting, flexible work hours, etc.). This is the story of a quantum leap to where the workplace needs to be. A place where all businesses will ultimately be when our old notions of work are shattered. Best Buy shows that companies that lead this transition have lots to gain!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great book
This is a great book, It just presses the right buttons and takes you in a step-by-step journey to see the problems and the solutions. Read more
Published 24 days ago by Mohammed
Excesively preacher's way
The Idea and so the contents of the book are ok But as said in the subject, the preacher's way makes the book redundant and tiring. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Morelamp
A revolutionary book that all employers must read
"Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It" is one of the most important workplace books of the last five years. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Jay Shepherd
Must Read for All Business Leaders
I worked for over 20 years in the 'grind' of corporate America. In that time, I've been lucky enough to have been sent to training and qualified in some of the greatest performance... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Douglas Karr
A little hokey but ideas are sound
There are plenty of people that will break down what this book is about so I'll spare you my regurgitation. Read more
Published 8 months ago by M. Baltrusaitis
Why Work Sucks and How to Fix it: The results-Only Revolution
Interesting book. Is hard to try to implemented when we are use to a schedule and a Boss. Our management team is working with ROWE now. We are really enyoying it.
Published 8 months ago by sfsaenz
If only more work places would read this book.
I like it! Fun read! Pair this up with Four hour work week and you have an action plan! I love results + action!
Published 10 months ago by Tiffine
Why This Book Sucks
Truly sad story, this book. It's such an interesting topic - Results-Only Work Environment - but the book itself is so poor. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Janetg
Very timely book about the future of work
Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It!, should be on every manager's reading list, or for that matter on the reading list of everyone who works. Read more
Published 13 months ago by dshettinger
There's Tyranny in the Workplace
This is one of the best business books I have ever read, both down to earth and passionately written. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Jayne Speich
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Inside This Book (learn more)
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First Sentence:
I've been late to work for the last three days, and I'm starting to get "the eye" from my boss. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
why work sucks, traditional work environment, beliefs about work
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Results-Only Work Environment, Best Buy, Sludge Anticipation, No-Meeting Wednesdays, Back Sludge, Sludge Conspiracy, Sludge Eradication, Sludge Justification, The Man, Sludge Conspiracies
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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