What happens to ideas in a ROWE?

There are many great things about working in a ROWE. Employees have control over their lives, efficiency becomes a priority, and work is rewarded on merit. However, often times management or company ownership is less excited about a ROWE because they fear it can lead to loss of control and “chaos”.

It’s actually quite the opposite. A ROWE leads to an empowered workforce that is eager to create and implement new ideas. Things often move much faster in a ROWE, as well.

Here is a recent example at SpinWeb. It was late Friday afternoon and I got a call from our VP of Sales, Arrick. He had an idea that we should help out with Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October). We talked for a few minutes and he ran some ideas by me. By Monday, we had launched a Twitter campaign to help raise awareness for breast cancer research and to help raise money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

In a traditional company, most employees would have thought “it’s Friday at 5pm, I’m done!” and would not have even bothered to share the idea. It might have gotten discussed by scheduling a big meeting on Wenesday or later in the week so that it could be discussed face-to-face with management. By this point, a week of fund raising would have been lost and the idea may have gotten shelved.

Since SpinWeb is a ROWE, it happened a bit differently. After talking over the idea with Arrick, I made a decision that it was a good concept and encouraged him to run with it. He worked on some design elements over the weekend, I wrote up a blog post on Saturday, and by Monday we had launched the campaign. It’s now raising money.

We didn’t care about work hours, locations, or having meetings. We simply ran with a good idea and got it done. This is the sort of thing that happens in a ROWE. Ideas happen anytime and anywhere. Work happens anytime and anywhere. Results happen anytime and anywhere.

Isn’t it time you thought about becoming a ROWE?