Last July, I justifiably blasted a book called Why Work Sucks & What to Do About It. The authors, trying to sell more of their consulting services, gave a shiny-happy, absent-of-detail description of what it’s like to work in a Results-Only Work Environment. Since that time, and with no help from the aforementioned book, we at our office have successfully adopted a work environment free of a defined schedule and by being entirely results-focused.
But today’s the day that I give it a pragmatic, grown-up name. I call it “Working on the F.A.R.M.”
“Why ‘working on the F.A.R.M.’?” Because a successful farm is practical. Because a successful farm focuses on the farm’s needs, and then indirectly, all the farmers benefit. If the farm does well, the farmers do well. If the animals are fed and the crops are seeded, fertilized and watered, then there’s no need for make-work projects. And if the work is done, then it’s fine to do other things. Work first, play later.
Most importantly, a successful farm is based on nurturing natural principles. You can’t harvest (i.e. benefit) if you miss the weather window to get the seed in the ground. You can’t harvest if you don’t fertilize the seeds. Your crop will be ruined if you don’t harvest it at the right time. You reap what you sow; you can’t harvest lentils if you plant wheat.
“Working on the F.A.R.M.” encompasses five elements, “Working” being the first… The remaining four are:
- Freedom of choice;
- Accountability for choices;
- Results as the only measuring stick; and enjoying the
- Motivation that comes from focusing on freedom, accountability and results.
Freedom of Choice
Everyone at our company decides when they come to work and when they go home. They decide what to work on and when to work on it. They decide when they’re accessible to their co-workers. If they’re going on vacation, they decide to either be accessible or have all the necessary information available for others to successfully work in their absence.
Accountability for Choices
Every choice has a consequence. So all choices should be made in light of those consequences. In our work environment, are my choices in line with the owners of the company? Am I working on prescribed priorities? Am I meeting deadlines and budgets? If I’m falling behind, am I compensating in order to catch up? If not, it’s up to me to make it happen.
Results as the Only Measuring Stick
To focus on a number of hours worked or on face-time or on playing office politics are all a waste of time. Such people are the first to go in an economic downturn. Just like on the farm, it doesn’t matter what I intended — God’s not gonna bail me out because I really wanted to plant those seeds… — it only matters what I accomplished. Successful farms only pay for results; they don’t pay for effort.
Motivation
The reality is that “working on the F.A.R.M.” is a more honest acknowledgement of real life. In the 21st century, business and personal lives are a fluid combination; trying to separate them is an outdated, ineffective and unproductive idea. Work, play and family can’t be neatly canned into specific time slots. We all need focused time for each area, but most of our lives are spent blending from one into the other. Ignoring that reality short-changes all of them.
For many people, their business lives started blending into their home lives decades ago. As long as the work is still getting done superbly well, why shouldn’t our personal lives be allowed to blend into work?
The result that comes from acknowledging the business-personal reality is not a reduction in productivity, but an increase in it. Suddenly people are motivated to do things faster. Work becomes effective. Most importantly, work becomes fun.
Working on the F.A.R.M.
It’s worked for 10,000 years. Why wouldn’t it work now?
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easy to say when your company is 4 ppl and some outsourcing. much harder to do when you got more moving parts etc.
Probably true.
It’s also a lot different than teaching, where producing results and being evaluated on performance have been contractually made irrelevant.
Did you want to back that comment up with some data, or are you just talking smack? In case you aren’t talking smack, you’ll need to kick things off by defining “performance” and “producing results,” after which point we can get into numbers.
Come on, Chris. ‘Fess up. Do you really think that the teacher profession is based on producing results measurable results that are then rewarded proportionately? Teachers are paid according to their contribution (and not according to their seniority or tenure)?
If that’s the case, then times have certainly changed since I was in school…
Speaking of which… it’s 8:45 Vancouver time. Aren’t you supposed to be teaching or preparing for classes right now?
define “results,” define “measurable,” etc etc.
Not everything worthwhile can be measured, not everything that can be measured is worthwhile.
Not my industry. I could guess, but I’m not familiar with what those results should be.
But what you and I both know is that there are teachers who contribute nothing and still have jobs. (For the record, I don’t think you’re one of them.)
Not everyone who contributes gets paid, and not everyone who gets paid contributes.
My experience in the private sector and then in schools is…that there are in any organisation 10% of people who are total dogfuckers. They are still there cos they know the boss, people are scared of them, they have a union, they do1 specific function that nobody else can, etc. 80% of people generally put in varying degrees of decent effort and output, and another 10%– who are keen on either getting into management, or on running their own show– work like fiends. Looks like a standard distribution to me, come to think of it, which means that, performance wise, 95% of people will be within 2 standard deviations of average.
Probably true. Here’s to hoping that remuneration will eventually follow the same distribution.
Hey. I LOVE it. Wise words. Will tag this for possible insertion into one of my own posts!
@Allie: Thanks! Glad you liked it.
Just curious, how did you find the article?
I’m sure it was from a link related to THESIS. Either the forum or a showcase. I’ve been doing a lot of clicking these days and finding some truly amazing like minded people. THESIS people unite!
I agree with Butch… unless there are performances to measure and clear expectations, I can’t see how this could work. There will always be hard working individuals and the slackers, who will always try to do the least work possible but get pay for it.
@Amy: Absolutely right. No system can solve for character flaws, especially a system that relies on stakeholders’ integrity.
The great thing about running small teams is that it quickly becomes apparent who is slacking, and if social obligation and coaching don’t solve the problem, a pink slip will.
@ Chris (Butch) and Amy:
Another thought – Chris’s standard distribution of work ethic assumes that all people have landed in their jobs at random, and that that distribution reflects what we would get from a random sample of people. Probably true.
That situation also means that the HR person is the one that should be given the pink slip.
The most important thing to hire is character. The most important thing to guard is corporate culture. The best way to do that is to hire good people.