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From the Mavericks at Work blog written by Polly Labarre. The post is titled ‘Freedom = Success (And not the other way around)’... that alone got me interested.

She contends that the old adage of “time put in + physical presence + elbow grease = RESULTS” is a myth and that employers are slowly starting to get the gist that in today’s world (technology enabled communication and the work-from-anywhere possibilities) many employees are looking for freedom in their career.

bq.. Old version: work hard (for a very long time), achieve success, earn freedom (to retire and do all the things you missed out on while you were working)

New version: find work that affords you freedom = success

What does that mean? She says:

I would argue that the organizations and leaders that find a way to build freedom (freedom from the time clock, freedom from the cube, freedom from the org chart, freedom to create) into work will be the winners in the future. Freedom is a bigger game than power. Power is about what you can control; freedom is about what you can unleash.

Sounds good to me! As someone who can do their job virtually anywhere, I think this is beyond obvious and a logical progression. Some employers agree. Most don’t, unfortunately.

Polly points to Best Buy and their ROWE initiative, which stands for Results Only Work Environment. As long as you get your work done and produce, you can do what ever you want. Go shopping at 2pm? Come in late? Leave early? Go to the movies with co-workers? All acceptable.

Our assumptions about how work works, where we work, and when we work are relics of the industrial age.

As someone who works for a company that pushes results based pay increases (AKA pay for performance), wouldn’t this approach be more logical than trying to con us into thinking a 5% pay increase every 14 months or so is great? I think so. The results speak loudly:

The results have been spectacular: an average 35% boost in productivity in divisions working in ROWE and a decrease in voluntary turnover by 52-90% depending on department.

The archaic idea that more hours, more meetings, more face time, more sitting at your cube, means more success has got to go.

Give me freedom.

[hat tip: Seth Godin]