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I was reading Jason Fried’s “The Way I Work” last night and it didn’t take long to realize that I had a new man-crush to rival those of Ryan Reynolds, Bill Simmons, and David Stehle.
When I run my own company, I will run it with a very similar approach to the one Jason takes with his employees. It virtually guarantees you’ll have talented people wanting to work for you. (And tons of idiot’s too.)
“Employees come to the office if and when they feel like it, or else they work from home. I don’t believe in the 40-hour workweek, so we cut all that BS about being somewhere for a certain number of hours. I have no idea how many hours my employees work — I just know they get the work done.”
No, not every company can operate this way, but A LOT more can than currently do. Could yours?
But employees won’t do their work? Easy solution. Show them the door. If you hire the best employees it won’t be an issue. They’ll be empowered by the freedom and work harder, at hours you wouldn’t expect them to. Sometimes in a small organization or team this might mean the others pulling the weight until you find the right fit. It’s worth it.
“We rarely have meetings. I hate them. They’re a huge waste of time, and they’re costly. It’s not one hour; it’s 10, because you pulled 10 people away from their real work.”
There has to be some research somewhere to show that 95% of meetings are worthless. Lets sit at the conference table and tell everyone what we’re working on. I got an idea. How about a wiki? Google Doc? An E-mail? You don’t need that meeting. That one either.
“After lunch, I get a little lazy between 1:00pm and 3:00pm. I don’t feel that productive, so I’m usually screwing around, which I think is really important. Everyone should read stuff on the Web that’s goofy or discover something new. I hate it when businesses treat their employees like children. They block Facebook or YouTube because they want their employees to work eight hours a day. But instead of getting more productivity, you’re getting frustration. What’s the point? As long as the work gets done, I don’t care what people do all day.”
Here’s the rub. If your employees aren’t compensated well, if you don’t respect them, if you don’t trust them, they’ll find ways to waste time. End of story. I think the hour after lunch should be mandatory nap time (like Kindergarten) so everyone wakes up anxious to dominate the second half of the day.
Bottom line, I just thought it was a refreshing perspective from someone who’s been uber successful running a business.
What are your thoughts? How would you run your company? Would this strategy work in your office? Would people take advantage of it? With so many people looking for jobs right now, wouldn’t this be the perfect time to try something like this?
I think it's great to allow employee's some leeway "as long as the work gets done". The reason that management sometimes has a problem with this, is that it's difficult to say when the work is 'done'.
To do this, you need very detailed and specific goals. This requires a lot of effort on the part of management to define these goals.
So it's easier just to make sure that the employees are doing something, ANYTHING, work related all day long, so they can be sure that something is getting done, because they can't really tell when it's "done" or not.
I should clarify that I don't agree with the scenario I mentioned above, it's just what often happens.
Hi Ryan,
Great blog post! I might have to take a look at this book, as well. Thanks for sharing it with the rest of us.
I couldn't agree more with the first point regarding time and location. When I was as a college representative with Warner/Elektra/Atlantic, I was in a situation much like the one Jason describes. I worked remotely in Pittsburgh, on my own hours, using my own apartment as an office. My time was not micro-managed by any higher authority. Sure, I was just an intern and this was the way the program had to be designed by necessity, but regardless--it worked.
The director of the program selected interns who she knew would work well in this type of structure. We were all highly ambitious, self-motivated individuals, who were passionate about our work and good managers in terms of how we structured our professional priorities and objectives. As a result, we all balanced our work and school accordingly and gave the best possible results on every assignments. We were excellent communicators, honest about time conflicts, work-load issues and deadlines. I know from my personal experience, I was passionate about my work, because I was able to be in control, and therefore, personally invested in my efforts.
I should mention here, that a year or so into my time as a college rep, I spent a summer interning directly for the director of the program in the corporate offices. There, I spent time assisting with program management, mentoring and working with college reps, recruiting, training and educating new reps, and gaining valuable insight into the inner-operations of the company. I learned a lot working in that office. Also, on the phone with reps, I learned how well the program worked for them, and as a result, what the benefits were to the company at large.
Sorry for the long comment, but ultimately, I guess I'm just trying to say, that from first-hand experience, I know this idea works--and works well. If I have a chance to start my own company someday, I will use this experience to organize my own internal employee structure.
It's exciting to know when something works, and it inspires you to work harder as a result. Thanks for touching on this issue.
Justin
@Scott - Thanks for the comment, and the explanation of an alternative scenario. I guess my stance is if you hire the RIGHT people you don't even need these firmly established tasks to use as measuring sticks. If a sales person is selling, if an account reps client is happy, I wouldn't say you have to have, this, this and this done.
Here's our companies goals, do what's right, make us money. Like Jason said, he doesn't even know what his team does all day, he just knows that work gets done. Sounds like they have a lot of freedom as long as they're benefiting the company.
@Justin - I'm with you Justin. Anytime I've encountered an experience like this or ambitious people who have worked in a similar environment, they've taken pride in their work and usually done MORE than grinding in a 9 to 5.
With technology these days (and even using 37 Signals' products) there's no excuse for some companies not to move to this model. At the very least it'd cut down on office expenses.
@Ryan - Not to nitpick TOO much, but I have to respectfully disagree with you. Even if a manager hires the "right" people, it doesn't absolve the manager from setting goals, boundaries, standards, etc. (although I loath most business acronyms, SMART goals is a good guideline… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria)
Furthermore, when I hear the phrase "Hire the right people" what I really hear is "Hire the people who think exactly like me, have exactly my same experience and values, and know as much about the company as I do even though they are new, so I don't have to explain much about the job". And really, how often does that happen? :)
I'm not saying that Jason goes this far. But I think that articles like this gloss over what Jason's company probably REALLY does to track and train his employees. And then other new managers read it and think "Oh, my employees should be able to do this much without me actually needing to manage them" and it starts a downward spiral in popular expectations.
Yes, this is a pet peeve of mine, so perhaps I'm overreacting. But I just wanted to offer a contrary opinion, so people can see how this idea can be taken too far. So here is my constructive criticism: Make sure your employees know what they need to do, keep close tabs on them for a while until you are sure they are doing it right, then gradually loosen your control and give them as much flexibility as they can handle without a drop in productivity.
It doesn’t sound as exciting and hip as “I don’t know how many hours my employees work, I just know the job gets done”, but it is more realistic.
@Scott: All -very- fair points. Thanks for the introduction to the SMART criteria as well. I hope I didn't allude to "hire the right people" = "hire people who think like me." I envision "the right people" as people who are good at what they do that work well together (should the company rely on collaboration) and have complimentary skills.
I think you're probably right re: the article making Jason's style look more glamorous than it probably really is. And I also agree with your approach of gradually loosing the control, provided that "keep close tabs" doesn't equate to micromanagement.
And I definitely think that companies need to use social tools, wikis (whatever) to communicate with one another and their bosses (this is essential) so that the boss and your teammates have confidence you are doing work (it just doesn't need to be from 9-5 in a cubicle.)
Thanks again for your insights. All very helpful in helping me think through this management style.
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