You don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn every morning. You can have a lie in. If you don’t feel like commuting into work, don’t. Go shopping, go to the movies, visit a friend or do some housework. Only work when you feel like it. As long as you achieve the work results that are expected of you, your time is your own. Spend quality time with your family and friends, finish your chores and admin, focus on your hobbies while delivering good results and advancing your career. You have work life balance and the company also prospers. Everyone lives happily ever after.
A fairy tale? Bliss? Utopia? This is a true story. It is called a ROWE and it works at Best Buy. ROWE is a Results Only Work Environment. In fact, it works so well that Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, who implemented the system at Best Buy, have written a book to encourage other companies to do it too. Their book is called ‘Why Work Sucks and How To Fix It.’
It is not pie-in-the-sky stuff. People are talking more and more about focusing on outputs, results only and giving the new work force the freedom and flexibility which they seem to crave. In the new world of work, more power is clearly devolving from the organisation to individuals because workers control the most lucrative means of production – their brains. Leading management thinkers have predicted that temporary networks of talented people to work on projects will be more productive than the hierarchical, command and control hierarchy that characterized the industrial age workplace. If this is how the world of work will look, then a move towards a results only work environment could be very effective.




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If you’ve picked up a
Only 30 years old, Parag Khanna has spent more than two years traveling to more than 100 countries, hoping to see firsthand the flash points of geopolitics and globalization. From his observations emerged a book, the recently published The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order
Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos
Boomers are variously defined as those people born from the mid 1940s to the mid 1960s around the world. Most researchers use the end of the Second World War as a reference point, which means that as of 2006, this group of people has started to turn 60. They are not old, though. Don’t be confused about that. This demographic tidal wave will have a greater effect on institutions and businesses than the aging of any previous generation. Because of the size and spending power of the boomers, mature values and trends will dominate marketplace realities.
A few years ago, some of the TomorrowToday team attended a workshop by Jennifer Deal. She certainly challenged our thinking. Her contention was that all the focus on generation gaps in the workplace was obscuring the fact that there are many similarities between people of all ages. She is right, of course - and it is a good “corrective voice” for business to hear. As much as there are certain distinctive characteristics of different generations, each person in your company is nevertheless still that: a person, a human being. As such, they have certain drives, ambitions, requirements and characteristics that should not be neglected.
‘Adaptive leadership’ according to Parks in her book ‘Leadership can be taught’ (which explores the philosophy and methodology of Harvard leadership virtuoso Ron Heifetz - purchase online at
I don’t know if you ever finish a book and feel like something different has happened? Something different to how you feel after finishing other books? Today I finished “
I was recently sent the outline of a book, “The Ten Faces of Innovation”, by Tom Kelley with Jonathan Littman (Profile, 2005) - buy it online at
Today’s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.
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The 5 steps of the Rewire process - a formula we have used successfully with our clients - are as follows:
The Economist recently had a Survey of Global Talent. It was superb. At the end of the survey, they gave a list of sources and recommended reading. Here it is for your reference purposes (PS - purchase the Economist survey
I am a serious fan of the magazine, “Fast Company”. Its one of the best out there. There is a fantastic new book that is a selection of their choice of the top articles from the last ten years of the magazine. Highly, highly recommended. “Fast Company’s Greatest Hits: Ten Years of the Most Innovative Ideas in Business” (get it 
by Michael Treacy and Fred WiersemaAddison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1997 edition
In our 
Yes, it exists … and you thought life was tough through your mid-life crisis. The Quarterlife Crisis is an often misdiagnosed period in the life of 20- and 30-somethings when the sheer weight of lifes choices bear down on the young and threatens to render them imobile. Travel, career, relationships, marriage, identity, passion, dreams, location … these are the decisions that Quarterlifers need to address when they are just shy of 30 years of age. Generally defined, the Quarterlife Crisis is that unique crisis of modern 20- and 30-somethings who are faced with overwhelming choices and expectations regarding their future.
I found an interesting article about people with skills, vision and passion ready to use their skills to help change society. To quote from the back of David Bornstein’s book called How to change the World we are challenged by ” What business entrepreneurs are to the economy, social entrepreneurs are to social change. They are, the driven creative individuals who question the staus quo, exploit new opportunities, refuse to give up and remake the world a better place. Read the
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