10 (not so normal) questions to ask new staff

1. What things do you like to do to ensure you have fun at work?
2. Can you give an example of a time you have felt most connected to your team mates?
3. Can you tell me about the best boss you’ve ever had and what made them so?
4. What good stuff have you heard about working here?
5. What bad stuff have you heard about working here?
6. What crazy things can you do that you could teach the team (Juggle? Do headstands? Swear in French?)
7. How do you love to be thanked for extra hard work? (Bottle of wine? Lotto ticket? Chocolates? Boss shouting coffee?)
8. If you are having a flat/tired/off day at work, what do you do to get yourself on track? How can I help?
9. What is your bliss? (Mountain biking? Holidaying somewhere exotic? Reading? Sitting in your fave café?)
10. Who do you most admire and why?

Managing without managers

A while back I blogged about ROWE - results orientated workplaces and a fab book called "Why Work Sucks and How to Fix it". ROWE is based on the radical statement "adults deserve to be treated like adults". I've come across a Brazilian company that is living its own ROWE. They like to "manage without managers". They too believe that their staff are grown ups. They encourage people to change seats everyday so people can't monitor "who is here and who is not" - because they are not supposed to. They don't care how many hours staff work, they care about what they are going to deliver this month. Every employee has full access to all financial statements (which are also presented in cartoon format) and everyone votes on their business units spending. One business unit brought cheap chairs as they wanted to budget for something more important to them. There are also 2 spare seats at every directors meeting available on a first in first serve basis.

Every six months employees set their own salary. Ask for too little and you'll be told to set a higher price. Ask for too much and you risk fellow employees sacking you. If they feel you don't work hard and you are not worthy of a share of the business units profit share you'll be shown the door. There is peer pressure on bad behaviour - everyone holds everyone to a high standard.

Before you decide cartoon financial statements are just madness, listen to how much this company makes! Further proof that those that are sticking out, being crazy and totally unafraid are truly succeeding. Our workplaces shouldn't even be as they were 5 years ago - times have changed so much. It is time to stop being so scared of sharing the 'control panel'.

Click here to see a 14 minute video about this awesome workplace.

“People get to be people all the time”

More and more experts are starting to say work-life balance is no longer 'the thing'. We now need work-life intergration, as work and life should be in harmony.... therefore removing the need to 'balance' the two. Makes a lot of sense. Scott Ginsberg of http://www.hellomynameisscott.com/ commented recently on the question he is frequently asked at airports "travelling for work or pleasure?" To which he responds "both" or "no difference for me". Having your work be a natural and enjoyable extenstion of yourself is how it should be. We need to create workplaces where "people get to be people all the time". I've just finished a book written by two wonderful ladies who are taking on that mission! It is called "Why Work Sucks and How to Fix it". Cali and Jody have created a framework called ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) which they have implimented in US Fortune 100 company Best Buy very very successfully. Staff are paid for work done, not hours worked. These women are fantastic and doing to the workplace what it called for years ago. I hope they conquer the world fast! I love how they think. They say millions and millions of objections have been thrown their way about ROWE but they have never had anyone disagree with the radical statement "adults deserve to be treated like adults". Damn right they do! ROWE requires trust, new thinking, commitment and open mindedness. Some people do get very anti this kind of movement, which I'd personally put down to fear or lazyness. Scared of what could happen, or too lazy to make it happen. They can't hide from the fact that this is where the future is taking us. We just need to tackle such workplace innovations (or revelations!) the same way you eat an Elephant. One bite at a time.

Cali and Jody believe it is not the bad boss or unfair break policy that makes people keep switching jobs. It is the very nature of how we work, which is flawed. These days we don’t have to wait until the store opens to buy something or watch TV when it airs or come down from Mt Everest to make a phone call. Yet at work we have given up all these freedoms. The nature of our workplaces force us to be slow and tradition bound at work. 20 years ago you had to go to the office because that is where the resources, phones and liquid paper was. This has been not the case for quite some time now.
A powerful insight for me from the book was "flexi time can make work suck more". As "Nothing can make you feel more out of control than to be given the illusion of control." There is a story of a worker who achieved flexible hours but: got stressed, questioned her own competence, had colleagues say sarcastically every time she was in the office "oh your here..." and being left out of decisions. It appears flexitime is not the answer! The workplace has outgrown it already.

ROWE also kills presenteeism (being in the building but not working) as slackers cannot hide in a ROWE. I highly recommend this book. It is the future of workplaces. It is powerful and fun. It is laden with fantastic real employee examples that illustrate what it is like in a ROWE.