Michael Karnjanaprakorn

Seth sent me a great article from Mavericks at Work about unleashing freedom to achieve success. The old version way of doing things was to “work hard (for a very long time), achieve success, earn freedom (to retire and do all things you missed out on while you were working)” and the new version is to “find work that afford you freedom and success.”

“Freedom is a bigger game than power. Power is about what you can control; freedom is about what you can unleash. And, increasingly, freedom isn’t something you pay your dues to earn so much as a basic human right of all working adults.”

One of my favorite examples from the article was about Best Buy’s ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) initiative. The basic principle is that people can do whatever and whenever they want as long as they get their work done. From there, they created “13 commandments” that guide ROWE. Some of the commandments: every meeting is optional, nobody talks about how many hours they’ve worked, and there is no judgement about how you spend your time.

I started to look into ROWE and came across some other interesting things and tidbits. Here’s a great NY Times article about productivity and how the “put a lot of hours in, get a lot of output” model was based on the industrial age when output was directly tied to the input (more importantly, the time). Today, we’re moving into the conceptual age where creativity and innovation trump conventions and traditional thinking. The days of working 9-5 will be non-existent.

Here’s another article from Business Week that dives into the Best Buy ROWE program. And here are the sites from the two visionaries that started the ROWE movement. CultureRx is the consultancy of Cali & Jody. And check out their blog while you’re at it too.

So what does everyone think out there?  Can’t we all strive to have a four-hour workweek?