No pants, no…teamwork?

Although it’s Spring, the No Pants Festival has nothing to do with Spring Break and everything to do with an evolving management trend – the remote management of digital nomads. I call this type of workplace management “Radical Flexibility.”

The newest take on Radical Flexibility is ROWE (Results Only Work Environment).  The ideal ROWE workplace eliminates office norms: no set hours, no required meetings or office hours unless required to do your job.  The only measure of value is the results.

More accountability and less micromanaging are Project Success Method bywords, and some studies suggest positive impacts…but the underlying assumptions are less promising:

• you could get so much more work done if you didn’t have to bother with other people

• structure is a cage

A collaborative environment needs some structure – how can people work as a team without set hours? – and a meaningful team can’t be formed with people only known to each other as an email address.

The Project Success Method offers a better, hybrid alternative.  Our techniques encourage in-person meetings to strengthen mutual support, collaboration and commitment to projects – but individuals are free to decide whatever pace or solutions work best. The Method has worked for small new product launches and large-scale, mission critical, time-sensitive, cross functional projects across an entire enterprise – while combining accountability and freedom for individuals, teams and managers.

Now that’s what I call Radical.  But no, it’s not pants optional.