Apparently the most recent flavour of the month is the Results-Oriented Work Environment or ROWE for those who prefer to only work with acronyms.  It a great name because how could anyone not want a more results-oriented work place?  Some of its detractors call it something different – anarchy.  I would probably call it self-employment.

ROWE, in its most current incarnation, was pioneered at Best Buy, and is in use at other high profile companies such as IBM and Netflix.  The theory is a simple one:  employees set their own time, schedules, and work methods, and are instead measured on the output of what they produce.  In theory, it sounds like an excellent idea, and in certain cases it could probably work very well.

I can think of a two situations where it really wouldn’t work:

1. It can’t work where there’s a high degree of inter-dependence with other stakeholders.  As a refugee of the Retail Food Industry, I can say without reservation that it would be a disaster if employees wrote their own schedule.  As great as it would be for the bulk of employees to work banker’s hours, it would get pretty frustrating for customers who predominantly shop at nights and on weekends.
2. It can’t work in situations where it is difficult to measure the output of employee effort.  If there is any degree of variation in work processes, then the measurement thereby becomes very difficult.  For example, any profession with case-work (lawyers, social workers, insurance etc.) are inherently difficult to measure.  Some cases may be easily wrapped up in a few minutes, while others may require weeks of research and follow up.

I know we’re all supposed to buy-in to the myth that any and all things are measurable, but the luxury of believing that falls only to academics who have never had to actually measure anything.  Ask a professor how to measure teaching effectiveness, and watch her face as she looks like your dog when you pretend to throw the ball and then hide it behind your back.

The second group of people who insist that all things are measureable are management consultants – who, (for the low cost of $5000/day plus expenses) are more than willing to help you measure everything in your business.  Unlike the professors, these folks don’t believe it, but they make good money convincing organizations to try it.

Should you try to better focus your organization on results?  Yes – that’s your job as a manager.

Should you impose measurement systems on everything?  Maybe – it depends on your business, and how meaningful you can make your metrics.  Where possible, you should measure and evaluate people mostly on their output.

Should you set people loose and tell them as long as they produce X widgets in a given week, they can do whatever they want?  I think that’s a recipe for disaster for employee morale, risk management, and true accountability.

Of course, that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong (with thanks to Dennis Miller).