{"id":375,"date":"2006-10-18T16:57:45","date_gmt":"2006-10-18T21:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/?p=375"},"modified":"2006-10-18T16:57:14","modified_gmt":"2006-10-18T21:57:14","slug":"best-buys-results-only-work-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/10\/best-buys-results-only-work-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Buy&#8217;s Results-Only Work Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There has been a lot written on Best Buy&#8217;s Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) in articles and in the blogs. Everyone seems to have an opinion about this type of work environment and if it could work outside of Best Buy. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.workforce.com\/section\/09\/feature\/24\/54\/28\/245430.html\" target=\"_blank\">One article specifically addresses the point of the adaptability of Best Buy&#8217;s culture in other companies.<\/a> I found a couple of points of interest that I would like to share with you.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Best Buy&#8217;s culture is very young,&#8221; says Washington, D.C.-based flexibility consultant Paul Rupert of Rupert &#038; Co., who has worked with clients ranging from Wal-Mart to Xerox. &#8220;They have a lot of significant managers who are still in their 30s. It&#8217;s very appropriate for them, with the breezy style and the humor and the slogans. But the headquarters at a typical company is filled with managers in their 50s and 60s-a different generation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Some aspects of ROWE, he thinks, might clash too strongly with the core principles upon which some conservative companies have been built. &#8220;You can ridicule an obsession with face time, for example, but some companies have a strong belief that having people at the same place, in the same time, creates synergy that is valuable to the company,&#8221; he says. &#8220;You&#8217;re going to have a hard time changing that.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Age and generations definitely does play a factor in why companies would have an easier time embracing this culture style. We have written numerous posts (<a href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/?p=200\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/?p=179\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/?p=39\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>)and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.selectmetrix.com\/Articles_Main.html\" target=\"_blank\">articles<\/a> regarding what the different generations look for in their jobs, careers and employers. As Paul Rupert comments, the leaders need to embrace the culture they are trying to implement, which is why Best Buy has been so successful with ROWE. In fact, it has been so successful they are in the midst of trying it out in one of their stores as a pilot program.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/magazine\/92\/clear-leader-extra.html\" target=\"_blank\">I found an interview with Brad Anderson, CEO of Best Buy, on FastCompany.com&#8217;s website<\/a> that really talks to the leadership&#8217;s role in making this program work. He was asked if he spent more time in the stores now, and part of his response drives on the importance leadership has in embracing and implementing a new culture:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Actually I&#8217;ve spent less time in stores than ever. This strategy [is] so challenging to the infrastructure of the company, so the first work is to get the infrastructure ready to embrace it. Key concepts like servant leadership [have to be enforced] that are very different from the examples we&#8217;ve set over a lot of years. That first has to get modeled at the hub of the enterprise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>One of the things I hate about all this terminology is that it has standard meaning which tends to denude the value of the principle. At the fundamental level, at the core, servant leadership is seeing &#8212; whatever your job and whatever your title is &#8212; that you&#8217;re actually in service to the people you lead. That the real measurement of whether you&#8217;re effective is if you helped increase the energy of the people who you&#8217;re engaging with and leading. If you&#8217;ve done that &#8212; if the energy level is higher than it was when you started &#8212; than you&#8217;re probably evidencing some servant leadership.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There has been a lot written on Best Buy&#8217;s Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) in articles and in the blogs. Everyone seems to have an opinion about this type of work environment and if it could work outside of Best Buy. One article specifically addresses the point of the adaptability of Best Buy&#8217;s culture in other companies. I found a couple of points of interest that I would like to share with you. &#8220;Best Buy&#8217;s culture is very young,&#8221; says Washington, D.C.-based flexibility consultant Paul Rupert of Rupert &#038; Co., who has worked with clients ranging from Wal-Mart to Xerox. &#8220;They have a lot of significant managers who are still in&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/10\/best-buys-results-only-work-environment\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,11,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales-management","category-team-management","category-trends"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-63","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1574,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/05\/the-open-door-ruse\/","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":0},"title":"The Open Door Ruse","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes the best advice is simply stated which is true of this Inc.com post titled The Fallacy of an Open-Door Policy.\u00a0 This topic catches my attention in that some of the worst managers I worked for claimed profusely that they had an open-door policy.\u00a0 They stated it, but we sales\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1753,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/10\/6-tips-for-sales-managers\/","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":1},"title":"6 Tips For Sales Managers","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"October 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes these quick tip articles provide little usable information.\u00a0 This article at Eyes on Sales is not one of those articles - there are excellent suggestions within the 6 tips (pay special attention to number 1): Lack of Process - The cure for this problem is to take your time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":564,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/01\/accountability\/","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":2},"title":"Accountability","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Sales & Marketing Management offers this quick article - Avoiding Accountability Talks. First, the context of the article is the reluctance of employees (and managers) to engage in holding other employee's accountable. A couple of survey stats: 50 percent say they are afraid of negative outcomes. 16 percent say they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1558,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/05\/7-deadly-sins-of-sales-managers\/","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":3},"title":"7 Deadly Sins of Sales Managers","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"First we posted on the 7 Deadly Sins of Salespeople over a year ago.\u00a0 Now comes the follow up - leaders, or sales managers.\u00a0 Each item has a full paragraph explanation to it which I have removed for space.\u00a0 However, 3 of them warranted the full paragraph: 1. Passiveness 2.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Leadership&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Leadership","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/leadership\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1469,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/03\/satisfied-salespeople\/","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":4},"title":"Satisfied Salespeople","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Clayton Shold over at Saleopedia offers up some stunning survey results from a recent SalesDog.com survey.\u00a0 Check this out (my emphasis): Despite the job pressure, 70 percent of respondents reported being happy with their management, while 64 percent of those taking the survey said they felt adequately recognized for their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1346,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/12\/motivating-salespeople\/","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":5},"title":"Motivating Salespeople","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Sales managers have to be part-time psychologists in their leadership position.\u00a0 The best salespeople have an internal motivation that drives them to succeed.\u00a0 Yet, a strong sales manager still has to know each salesperson's drivers and how to access them when needed. Selling Power offers a short article titled Internalizing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Leadership&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Leadership","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/leadership\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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