Compassion Fatigue Solutions

Does that appeal or appall you?

My new favourite business maverick is Tim Ferriss, (review below of his NY times best selling book the Four Hour Work Week). In his latest blog post, he interviews the authors of a soon to be published book that studies the benefits of the ROWE (results only work environment):

Quote from Tim's blog: "How did a Fortune 100 company increase productivity at headquarters 41% while decreasing voluntary turnover (corporate speak for quitting) as much as 90%? I’ve been fascinated by this unusual experiment since reading about it in 2005. The best part? It began with a 24-year old new hire named Cali Ressler, not a top-down decision from the CEO. Cali is now co-author of a new book with ROWE co-developer Jody Thompson, which details how it all happened — and how others can replicate (or at least emulate) its success"

[And here's a quote from Cali Ressler in the Ferriss interview]: "In a ROWE, each person is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done. Currently, there are two authentic ROWEs—Fortune 100 retailer Best Buy Co, Inc. and J. A. Counter & Associates, a small brokerage firm in New Richmond, WI. At both organizations, the old rules that govern a traditional work environment—core hours, “face time,” pointless meetings, etc.—have been replaced by one rule: focus only on results."

To read this fascinating two part article, visit www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/

Clearly, those of us who do direct client work can't ascribe to this model (for client days at least) but it's worth thinking about for other elements of the work that we do.

I am reminded of being in high school at exam writing time. It's June, the room is swelteringly hot, the trees are swishing in the wind outside, I can see and smell the freshly cut grass, the flowers on the lawn, maybe even a nearby swimming pool splash and I am done writing the exam. Done as in I've revised every word, turned it back to front and upside down, and if I spend any more time on it, I will actually change my answers to the wrong ones just to beat boredom. Problem is, you see, only 40 minutes have passed and we are obliged to stay in the exam room for a set period of time (usually something excruciatingly long like 3 hours) and of course one is not allowed to bring in any extra material of any kind. I wish I had known about mindfulness meditation at the time, I would have because a true yogi by now! Anyhow, I almost always ended up spending two hours staring off into space and just being bored to tears, waiting for the time to end. Tick, tick, tick.

Have you ever had a clerical job like that, where, no matter whether or not you were done with your work, you had to sit at your desk until 5pm no matter what? I once actually fell asleep at my desk and only woke up because the phone rang and I was the receptionist. I had been asked to update all our client records (which my boss thought would keep me out of his hair for the summer) and it was actually a two day job. Then, was I ever bored for the rest of the summer. Of course this was before the internet, I would have likely been just fine with the web, maybe become a huge stock trader at age 16...I also used to read novels on my lap throughout high school and some very tedious university courses.

Ok, so I probably suffer from some sort of attentional deficit hyperactivity whatever you want to call it. But the reality is that people like me are made absolutely miserable by set schedules that have no rhyme or reason. Staying at work until 4:59:59 only makes sense when it makes sense.

See what you think of Ferriss' post and write to me (if anyone reads these, it's not exactly turned into a big public forum you guys, but that's ok too). I don't write comments on anyone else's blogs either.