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Forever Grateful

Sep 26, 2011 » by Stacey Swanson

I play many roles for CultureRx, but primarily ensure sure our clients’ needs are met. This can be fun and challenging at the same time. A few weeks ago, I received an email that was signed “Forever grateful.” This one almost brought me to tears and makes the struggles to help companies adopt a Results-Only  Work Environment well worth it.

CultureRx helps people focus on what’s important – results, and in turn make lives better – personal and professional. When managers trust employees to focus on results, it is freeing and rewarding. A ROWE is a sustainable change that keeps evolving over time. It’s fun to watch.

So when I got the email from Ronnie Wooten, the COO of Suntell, I was happy to help. Ronnie reached out to me asking for ROWE topic ideas for a staff meeting. She said they want to keep ROWE in front of people, so they don’t slip back to bad habits. I suggested they discuss new hires. How will you let them know what ROWE is and what it is like to work at Suntell?

At the next staff meeting, for those in attendance in person or via phone, Ronnie along with the CEO did a role play.

In Ronnie’s words:

“ . . . I wish I had recorded our meeting today!  The CEO and I went into the meeting (conference call) and posed as interviewees for a position within Suntell.  The staff (about 90% participating) was completely unprepared – we had not clued them in to what we were doing.  They were the interviewers/hiring panel.  The first question was “What are the hours here?” and from there we fired off questions to them for 45 minutes about ROWE – EVERY SINGLE PERSON ANSWERED SPOT ON!!!  I had goose bumps!  I really, really wish I had recorded it so I could have given it to you guys – it was AMAZING to hear, how after just almost a year now, everyone totally gets it and is able to correctly respond to questions about what work looks like and how work gets done!!!”

Forever Grateful!!!!
Ronnie”

Way to go Suntell.  We are forever grateful as well.

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  • Concerned Employee

    Good job Stacey!! It is nice to hear that once ROWE is implemented, it becomes an irreversible process. Go ROWE! 

    • http://twitter.com/StaceyMSwanson staceyswanson

      Concerned Employee- Once you get ROWE you would never want to go back.  It would be like saying no we DON’T want to focus on results.  And that would be so strange!

  • Mark

    Hi there, I’m aware that this comment is not relevant to your blog post directly, so I am not expecting this reply to go public.I just wanted to present a case study I have been working on with a client, which may interest you and tackles the subject of coaching and mentoring. The link for the article is http://springccr.co.uk/coaching-at-work and there is a free press pack available to download with assets should you wish to create your own content or share the information internally or externally. Please let me know if you have any issues with the pack, or require files in any other format, as I will be only too happy to help. Please also let me know (or leave a comment on the moderated page) if you would like to receive further press packs from Spring in future. If I don’t hear from you, I will always assume you do not. All the best – Mark

  • John

    Hi We’re a start-up and we’d like to implement a ROWE. My partner pointed out that we’d need to have someone in the office at all times (someone in an authority position has to be there at all times. If we can’t trust everyone to have keys, we can’t trust them to be there alone either.)

    We don’t want to single someone out and have them chained to the office and posting the status of the office (open/not open) seems to defeat the whole purpose of the ROWE. Is there a better way?

  • John

    Hi We’re a start-up and we’d like to implement a ROWE. My partner pointed out that we’d need to have someone in the office at all times (someone in an authority position has to be there at all times. If we can’t trust everyone to have keys, we can’t trust them to be there alone either.)

    We don’t want to single someone out and have them chained to the office and posting the status of the office (open/not open) seems to defeat the whole purpose of the ROWE. Is there a better way?

    • http://twitter.com/StaceyMSwanson staceyswanson

      John- Thank you for posting! I love what you are thinking- getting a strong foundation for the culture of your start up organization.  Having that in place, and having employees clear on the results from the start is key.

      In a ROWE, people will be where they need to be in order to achieve their results.  For some, that might be in the office some days, and others it might be meetings with clients at a certain location. 

      For CultureRx, we help clients with laying the foundation for ROWE and answering the types of questions in the training sessions.  If you want to have a general conversation with us on what a ROWE training looks like, feel free to reach out to us at email: info@gorowe.com

      Go ROWE!