Results should matter, not just working late

— -- As you might guess from the title of Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It, authors Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson are underwhelmed by the way most workplaces run.

They use words such as dismal, unhealthy and drudgery for the traditional work environment.

Ressler and Thompson — founders of CultureRx, a consultancy that promotes better ways to work — have a long list of reasons for disliking the standard work culture. Atop the list is the commonly held myth that "Time + physical presence + hard work = results."

The existence of the myth will come as no surprise to anyone who has been chastised for coming in a few minutes late, while Bob in the next cubicle is praised for staying late. Never mind that you actually get more work done. Somehow, your boss seems more concerned with having office seats filled than having smart, efficient, productive people.

To satisfy bosses, workers must embrace what Ressler and Thompson call "presenteeism," the idea that traditional workplaces reward long hours over efficient hours. Employees who know how to play the game show up early and leave late, but spend hours reading the newspaper. After all, when efficiency is rewarded with more work, the incentive is to do as little as possible in as much time as possible.

"Our beliefs about work … are outdated, outmoded, out to lunch," Ressler and Thompson argue. "The only solution is to change the game entirely." Indeed, the Results-Only Work Environment they propose is a drastic change for most companies. The basic premise is that "people can do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done."

It's a paradigm shift, but one company has made the leap. Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson explains in the book's foreword that the results-only philosophy was tested at Best Buy with encouraging results. Best Buy's experiment resulted in a 35% increase in productivity, a vast reduction in voluntary turnover, and a much happier workforce, Ressler and Thompson write.