Sunday, October 18, 2009

Liberate the Workforce

WSJ had a review of a new book Freedom, Inc.: Free Your Employees and Let Them Lead Your Business to Higher Productivity, Profits, and Growth.

One thesis of the book is that "...a rigid, top-down management style too often makes workers miserable, stifles innovation and, not least, leads to economic distress for employees and stockholders alike."

We have a silly, assembly-line culture of work in this country. BusinessWeek critiques this well in Smashing The Clock, an article about Best Buy, which has a "'results-only work environment,' [that] seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity."

Freedom, Inc. explains that this results in "judging employees by everything except what counts, which is whether the job gets done."

2 comments:

Running Man said...

Companies in general want it both ways. If you are getting the job done and working from home then you are still seen as getting a perk.

Smart companies will be the ones who embrace technology to dispense with real estate.

CP said...

Yeah, one of the reasons to be bearish even long term on commercial (office) real estate.