Traditional managers (and workers) insist: if an employee is a high performer and completes his (or her) work quickly and efficiently, then he should be expected to do more work.

This is rewarded in the traditional work environment using, as a measure, the “face time” a person has accumulated either at his desk or with his “higher-ups”. High performance marks are granted to those who put in the most time.

If Susan comes in early and stays late, then she is clearly “dedicated” or “committed”. She must be if she is there all the time, spending hours with the “right” people, if she only takes half a lunch, and diligently pecks away at her keyboard (when someone important is looking).

No. Wrong.

The reward for work done well… should not be MORE work (usually somebody else’s, who has fallen behind in their work). Rewarding your high performers by commanding them to do the additional work of your slackers is not a reward at all. That is punishment.

It IS a reward, though, to the slackers. They have no pressure or responsibility to perform better. It is okay to slack because someone else will fix their mistakes, complete whatever tasks they do not, and pick up the extra work when they want to kick back.

Again, the reward for work done well should not be more work.

The reward for work done well… should be more FREEDOM.

Instead of punishing high performers, what if, once employees meet their results, they are free to do whatever they want? Think about it. ROWE is like turbo-charging your team, switching from regular unleaded to high octane fuel.

Most cars (jobs) run on regular (traditional) gas and they chug along okay. Nothing wrong with regular; it’s regular, traditional; it’s what almost everybody else does. It only becomes not okay when a race car (competitor) suddenly zips by. It has a better engine, better fuel, and is able to achieve higher speed and increased performance. It’s quick, efficient, and dazzling, and now the 87 octane looks like a horse and carriage by comparison.

In a ROWE, the default setting is high-octane. The high performers get the rewards—they get to the result (winning) faster and they enjoy the ensuing benefits (more time with friends and family, more control over their lives, etc.). The slackers do not get rewarded. They get left in the dust. After all, Nascar never sends the winning car around the track a few more times to push the other cars along. Other cars can still run on regular if that is their preference but they get the same results regular cars get. The race car gets the results race cars get. Very simple.

Here is what many traditional leaders miss…

If the slackers start seeing the high performers rewarded with more freedom instead of punished with more work, what happens? You can probably guess. Slackers now have incentive to step up their game, to tune up their engine and become star performers. They will want the reward that properly comes with work done well. In a Results-Only Work Environment, slackers do not get to loaf because there is no incentive to do so.

The other thing that happens is high performers become even higher performers. They no longer hate their jobs. They stop doing great work out of a personal sense of duty and start doing their absolute best work from a sense of passion for doing what they love (which is possibly why they chose the job in the first place). The race cars love their freedom and their inclination is to protect it, to show you they never want it to go away. They become loyal, resourceful, powerful, and inspired.

When you start legitimately rewarding work done well and throw out the fake platitudes and the watch in exchange for 20 years of service (really? I give you 20 years of my life that can never be returned and you give me a ^#*$% watch?), then EVERYONE focuses on results.

The surprising thing is, when you go ROWE, many of the people you know to be slackers right now will turn into high performers, and some of the people you thought were high performers turn out to be slackers who were just talented at gaming the system. In a ROWE, the real slackers are exposed and the real high performers are brought forward. If a company is really, truly, committed to blowing away the competition and getting to results, there is an easy and obvious way to do it.

Turbo charge your organization. Set your performers free.

Go ROWE!

Tags: high octane, Michael Salamey, results only work environment, reward, reward for work done well, ROWE