For a long time, corporate performance has been managed by looking at worker time and presence. Rules and policies are usually focused on employee behavior, resulting in an inefficient, broken system. While working at Best Buy, Jody Thompson started to reimagine how a workplace could be managed, emphasizing results over time and presence. Now she is focused on workplace transformation full time, as the Founder and CEO of CultureRX. In this episode of Logistics with Purpose, Jody joins hosts Enrique Alvarez and Kristi Porter to share her story and talk about how changing a company’s culture can revolutionize what they are capable of achieving.

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This episode was hosted by Enrique Alvarez and Kristi Porter.

Welcome to Logistics with Purpose presented by Vector Global Logistics in partnership with Supply Chain.

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And now, here's today's episode of Logistics with Purpose.

Welcome to another great episode of Logistics with Purpose.

I'm your host, Enrique Alvarez and I have the pleasure of having Kristi co hosting with me today.

Hey Kristi, how are you doing?

Hi. I'm good.

We are a little starstruck this morning as we explored.

I'm just, I don't know, jealous, nervous, excited all over.

And I've let you introduce our guest today, Kristi, but I think it's going to be amazing.

It's someone that we somehow know fairly good through her book.

And I think the book, it's fair to say, has really shaped the kind of company we are and the way we actually approach business in general.

So I'm excited about it.

Yes.

Yeah, me too.

So for those of you who aren't familiar with this name yet, you are probably familiar with the book that she's written simply because Vector talks about it all the time.

So we are have the pleasure of talking to Jody Thompson, who is the co founder and CEO of of Culture Rx and the bestselling author of why Work Sucks and How to Fix it, why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it and she's the co creator of the Row model.

So welcome Jodi, we are thrilled to talk with you.

Even by the name of the book, when we talk about it, people are like, what is this?

I understand completely and I need to know more about this.

So we're thrilled to have you here.

Oh, thank you so much.

I'm happy to be here.

And anytime we can talk about this kind of concept that's working and help other people think about work differently, I'm all for it.

So thanks for inviting me.

No, thank you so much for being here and taking a little bit of your time to share with us and our audience.

I'm sure people are going to be as excited as we are to listen to what you have to say today.

And to start us off, why don't you just tell us a little bit about where you grew up and a little bit more about your childhood.

Who is Jodi?

I have to think back a long way to think about that, but I actually grew up in the Minneapolis, St. Paul area, Twin cities of Minnesota.

And I lived in your typical 50s neighborhood with little ramblers and all the moms were at home and sidewalks and roller skating and the whole bit.

A lot's changed since then, and we all have to change with it, I guess it was a whole different day back then.

Really.

Well, it's a whole different world from three years ago, so.

Right.

Yes.

Right.

Adjusting quickly.

And yes.

I didn't hear it in the pre.

In our little pre chat here, but now when you say moms and Minnesota,.

I hear it a little bit.

Yeah.

People say that to me all the time.

I usually make them guess where I'm from, and pretty much people get it right away.

Sometimes they say Fargo, which, you know, sound like that, too.

Well, thank you for sharing a little bit about that.

And before we get into a little bit more of your professional journey, is there something, when you look back on that childhood, suburban childhood especially, is there a story from your early years that sort of.

Now you're like, I can see how I was already kind of headed down this path as a child.

I have a couple things to say about that, Christy.

And one of the things is when I was in elementary school, I was perplexed why the boys could wear pants to school and the girls had to wear dresses.

And I was in the student council.

And so I sort of fought that policy and said, it's freezing cold outside.

We live in a winter area.

By the time I get to school, I can't feel my legs and feet.

I think girls should be able to wear pants.

Right.

And it got passed.

So what was, of course, what was not good for me is my mom still made me wear dresses, but for everybody else, I got to wear my pants.

I know.

And then I went to the University of Minnesota in fitness administration.

Really?

Pe.

But I didn't like how they.

What the program was.

They didn't have the right elements in it.

I didn't think.

So I actually designed my own program using university without walls.

So you can tell I'm trying to not fit into all of the different rules and policies.

And after I graduated, I went to the school board and I wanted to change how we thought about physical education in elementary, secondary, and high school programs.

And of course, they didn't accept what I was saying.

But if you think about obesity right now and childhood obesity, physical education is.

It needs to move away from that sort of PE centered around sports skills, and we have to go more contemporary and teach us about our bodies and how they function.

And what a healthy lifestyle looks like.

And I was thinking that 30 years ago, but it was too soon, I think.

Yeah.

Student council was a much easier gig.

Yeah.

Right.

Well, it's still definitely there for us to improve though, right?

Even today.

I mean, I think that you're absolutely right.

There's a lot of schools that basically go around sports more than health, which is something that definitely needs to happen.

You're absolutely right.

Yeah.

Let's talk a little bit about your professional journey.

You began your career by joining hp, Hewlett Packard and Best Buy.

You went on and wrote that book that I so much love and admire.

But tell us a little bit how you actually went from.

Did you skateboard, by the way?

You mentioned skateboarding, but I wasn't sure if you were one of the ones skateboarding.

Rollerblading.

Rollerblading.

Never skateboarded.

But you did rollerblade that skill.

Yes.

Well, how.

Tell us a little bit more how you went from rollerblading to world renowned author.

So, Best Buy, when you think about it, it was back in like 2006 when we were trying to reimagine the workplace, and it wasn't HR per se that was trying to do that, but it was.

I was a change agent, so that's what I did at Best Buy.

And I got together with Callie Ressler and she was in work life programs.

And what we realized and what people really know is that organizations across the globe, especially an organization like Best Buy, showing up.

So time plus presence equals results.

That was what the currency of work was back then.

And we all accepted it.

But Callie and I looked at it as a really a broken system of inefficiencies.

It had rules and policies directing our behaviors.

And at that time we both said, work sucks and we have to fix it.

That's exactly.

Yes.

It's a title that definitely grabs anyone's attention.

And also a mantra, I'm sure.

Bumper magnets.

Bumper magnets, for sure.

Let's needlepoint that on a pillow.

That's right.

The.

Okay, so tell us a little more about the model.

We've kind of hinted at it so far, so.

RO stands for Results only Work environment.

You initiated it at Best Buy.

Even just reading the book, I found that.

Even when I saw that, I thought that was really fascinating because that is not the type of environment I would have assumed you would start that kind of model in with a retail and people out on show floors and things like that.

So tell us a little more about the model and how you started implementing it.

So we were at in corporate.

So there were 5,000 employees in the corporate setting.

And so when we started this out, we weren't thinking of the field employees yet.

But if I'm going to define RO for your audience, I have to discuss what it's not.

And that helps sometimes imagine what it is.

As I mentioned, the old and outdated currency of work is time plus presence equals results.

But in the results only work environment, the currency changes significantly.

So now you have autonomy plus accountability equals results.

And there's no labels like teleworker, remote worker, four day work week worker, hybrid worker, or flexible worker.

Right.

These labels, what they do, Christine Enrique, is they say that anything different than working 8 to 5 Monday through Friday in an office needed a policy or label.

And in traditional organizations, managers become permission granters.

I'm sure your audience can even see that in their own work.

And people who are lucky enough to get a flexible schedule are judged.

So I'm sure I had a kid who could leave early.

And where's Bob?

He never comes into the office.

So autonomy is way different.

So autonomy means self directed and independent.

And if you look at social science, it's proven over and over that increasing the control people have over time, it lowers stress.

And psychological stress increases as workload demands increase.

So at the same time you're losing that control, you're increasing the workload demands and that is a recipe for psychological stress.

Yeah, absolutely.

So you're no longer at Best Buy.

You're the CEO of your own company now.

So at what point you tried it, it worked successfully, you got data to work with.

At what point did you realize this actually needs to be implemented on a broad scale and we need to teach others how to do this through a book and workshops and all the things that you do.

It was interesting because what we could see happening at Best Buy was so profound, we thought early on, this is not a Best Buy thing.

Best Buy is a retailer, right?

They're in the retail business, not the culture change business.

So we realized that the mindset around work, about time and location is everywhere.

It doesn't matter what country you're in, what job you have, everybody's being managed that way.

And so we got really excited about how can we actually share this with other people?

And we really couldn't do it as Best Buy employees.

So what happened is Culturerx became a wholly owned subsidiary of Best Buy so that we could go out and actually sell it.

Sell culture change.

So I'm really interesting because I also learned that innovating in the HR space.

It's almost an oxymoron now that HR is bad.

But HR as a whole, they have policies and things that people and organizations need to follow.

Some of it is to keep you safe, whatever, but it's very policy driven.

And what we were doing was sort of ripping that out from under everything and not having policy be the boss of us, but having results be the boss of us.

I imagine it must have been.

No, go ahead.

Sorry.

No, no, I was going to say.

And then off we went, galloping away.

And then pretty soon we spun off and we were out there on our own, trying to describe this to people.

And I don't know if you guys know this.

There was an article that came out right at the beginning when we left Best Buy, and somebody said, either this idea is going to change the world or it's going to be the hardest thing ever to sell.

And it became.

That's absolutely right.

It's the hardest thing ever to sell.

And it's changing the world.

Absolutely.

And we can feel that by experience and applying it to our own processes and culture and values.

But back then, going back to Best Buy and what you actually had to do to sell it internally first, and then for them to let you spin off this other company that was going to go out and focus on changing the culture of other companies, I feel like that must have been like a huge endeavor.

How did you.

Because you read the book and it makes sense, it's rational, makes sense, people can relate to it.

But then that and implementing it is a completely different thing.

How did you manage, first and foremost, people at Best Buy, to buy into this and allow you to just do what you did?

So.

Seems very challenging.

Yes.

Well, I had a conversation over the last year with Brad Anderson, and he was the CEO when we were there, and he talks about how his.

What he wanted is he wanted to create a work culture where innovation happened organically.

And what's interesting about Best Buy, and I always say this, RO had to start there because doing some of the things Callie and I were trying to do was they allowed it to happen just to see what it would do.

And so what we did is we looked around for a couple leaders that were willing to let us experiment with this idea so we could build.

How do you do this?

What are the blocks of things that have to happen and where do you start and where do you end up?

And so we got a couple teams to do that, but then we never sold it to other teams.

What happens with the results?

Only work environment.

It's like a big magnet.

And once it starts to incubate inside of an organization, it pulls people towards it.

It's not something that's technical change.

It's adaptive and it's what people in their soul really want.

So we never had to sell it.

And so everybody, we want to be next.

We want to be next.

That's the kind of situation we're in.

And even when we go into companies now, if it's a company of over 200 people and they want to do a pilot, we incubate it in one group so that they can understand how profound it is for their own culture.

And of course, people are like, me next, me next.

How about us?

Right?

That's like a virus.

It is, it is.

I do say that it is like a virus.

Similar.

I mean, probably not the best thing to say after the pandemic, but it really is.

It catches fire very quickly because it's in people's best interest and it's also in company's best interest.

And I feel like the future will be more culture and purpose driven.

So you'll see this perfect kind of storm forming that has probably helped you.

Tell us a bit more about culture Rx, because you mentioned you spun it off out of Best Buy.

Tell us a little bit more about those times and when was it, what did it, how did it happen and what does CultureRx do as a business now?

So we, once we spun off, we had this feeling that it would really, it would take up like wildfire.

Like I'm going to be out on my private yacht in the ocean and people are making my meals and whatever we think that looks like in our own lives.

And it didn't turn out that way.

It was considered so radical that people said it'll never work.

One, it'll never sustain anywhere.

Two, it'll never work in my organization.

My boss won't ever go for this.

And so what we learned right away was we had to really find not the right company but the right leadership that wanted to break free from the status quo and move into something completely different.

They wanted to commit to that.

Well, luckily, to keep us going and paying our bills and everything, the University of Minnesota came to us and they wanted to do a longitudinal study and people can look at that study, but it was a six year study and a whole bunch of things came out of that study.

We basically had a control group and then people that went through and then people that didn't go through this experience and lots of different things measured.

They did saliva Swipes of people.

Is your stress level going down?

It did.

And we also learned that not only the stress cortisone readings of the people that were in a row decreasing, also their families.

So there's something about an employee being clear about what they're accountable for and having autonomy that isn't just about that person, but it permeates out into their people that they come into contact with every day.

So I will tell you one thing, that if you don't completely believe to your inner soul that this is the right idea, I would have stopped 12 years ago.

It's hard to sell.

I have to keep talking about the same thing over and over again, and it can get sort of heavy and frustrating.

But even today, and the team I have and myself, we really, truly believe deep down in our soul that this is going to make business better, communities better, and give people a life that's more rich throughout and not waiting till retirement anyway.

I still believe.

Yes, you're a passionate believer.

I'm working on that third block, so we'll keep it going.

Awesome.

I feel like one of the strange but positive things maybe that came out of the pandemic was when people started working remotely.

I think there was a lot of fear from a lot of management and executives, oh, people are gonna work from home, they're not gonna get anything done.

And then that turned out to be absolutely wrong.

In a lot of cases, people were able to get things done on their own time.

They were able to juggle.

And even on when reading the book and then looking at your website and things, it.

I completely understand kind of the hard sell as well, because it sounds maybe at times a little touchy feely or how does this actually happen?

Even on your website you talked about, this isn't just adding like perks, like a kombucha machine or something like that.

This isn't Google nap pads and pods, which I would love, or anything like that, but it's about a transformational culture change.

As you indicated.

What are a couple of the most significant changes that you've witnessed?

So I'm going to tell you a story.

And it's a simple story, but it has a lot of complexity in how the change happened.

We were working with a state government agency, think government workers, and they were hourly.

So this is a situation where you might think it's not going to work there.

People were saying to us, oh, Jody, you must be so happy.

During the pandemic, all the people are working from home, so it must be rural.

And that's the struggle right there, because rural has nothing to do with location.

So we had this team and they had to, they had a window, so people would come up to the window.

So there are people from this city that came in every day to get what they needed.

And when we came into this team, they were 1500 applications behind in completing those.

And it was to help people that needed health care, food and shelter.

There are 1500 applications behind.

So we went in to change this work and help them attach to what is their real purpose.

And we've heard that all over.

Purpose, you have to have purpose.

People don't really have purpose in sort of that kind of environment.

What they have is I do my time and when I'm done, I get money.

So we got everybody around the idea that when you have 1500 applications that aren't done, that's 1500 families that aren't getting to eat right, they don't have the right healthcare and they're on the street.

So you're doing something really big and important for the, for the society.

So then we went through the whole, all the modules and everything and set them free, right?

We set them out there.

The manager, we had to use some smelling salt and it's going to be okay.

Let's just see what happens.

Well, I'm just going to go to the punchline because in three weeks they went from 1600 behind or 1500 down to 132 in three weeks.

And when we started with them, oh no, we'll never get those done.

We need 12 people, we need to hire more people.

But once they understood really who they were, the purpose, they stopped fighting about who gets to work from home and how come she gets to leave early and all that kind of stuff.

Now it got better.

So now they realize what their goal is and they get down to there's never an application sitting there, right?

They figured out as a team how to get them get through all of them.

Now they started to wonder, well, some of the people that we need to help can't get in here during the day.

They're trying to do jobs, they're trying to do everything and they can't get here by 4 o'.

Clock.

So what we did as a team, they said, is we figured out how to be open two nights a week until 8 and not add any expense to the bottom line.

And these were hourly workers.

So they created that type of how they put work together and what they think of it into a whole different mindset.

Nobody's saying, oh, I don't Want to work at night?

No.

They're saying, I get to help people.

It's a completely different way to think about work.

So that is my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I have some other government agencies I would love to recommend, which.

I think we all would.

Right.

Anybody's listening.

Right?

We do a lot of work in Canada around government agencies, so.

Okay.

They're a little bit more open and friendly.

Yeah, and friendly.

Go ahead.

No, it's as you said.

Right.

You're actually changing the mindset of people.

It's really more about that and focusing on things that really matter, which we have so much deviated from over the course of history.

Right.

I mean, the goal.

Sometimes we lose track of what the goal is or we don't communicate it correctly to the entire organization, and all of a sudden you wake up and no one knows what they're working for or towards too.

So this is a really good way of coming back together to work on the same problem or purpose or objective.

Right.

And I think people think, why should I care about that?

That's for the leadership to care about.

But one of the things we have people do when we're taking people through this change is we have every single person path their way out to the customer.

So they have to say, I'm a retail specialist and I do this and I do that, and I do this and I do that, and that's how I help our customer.

So it doesn't matter where you are in an organization, if you can start pathing your way out to how you in your job help this happen, you're not going to care.

It's an exercise of the mindset shift.

Right.

So.

Right.

Well, and you make your work more meaningful to you, and that way we'll make it.

You'll be happier and more fulfilled and your families will be happier.

And as you said, it's just like a.

A virtuous cycle that you just have to start somewhere.

And just by implementing this new mentality, we.

And we know about this.

I mean, from the launch in 2008, why word socks and how to Fix it has been an amazing book that we not only give to every single host and interviewee that we have, which we'll probably not have to send to you, but we have shared it with many, many organizations around the world, from, like, potential clients to suppliers to friends to people.

And it is actually required for all our new employees to read it in.

In our contracts that they have to read the book.

And I was some of the questions that I always get, and I would like to get your thoughts on this is, but that's because you guys are in logistics and it applies to logistics.

So is it industry specific?

Is it company specific?

Because sometimes they say, yeah, but that's because you guys don't really have to do this or that or that.

Chances are it doesn't apply to us.

How do you respond to that question, which I'm sure you get all the time.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I would be on that yacht.

Right?

Yeah.

So here's what's interesting.

Well, first of all, thank you for buying the book and sharing it with people.

I really appreciate that.

It's a fun read and I think people, it touches people because it's a changing human element on how we think about work.

But I'm going to say this RO applies to all industries, including nonprofits.

We've implemented it in manufacturing, like on a manufacturing line, in call centers, professional services, union workers, federal, state, local government, nonprofits, salaried workers, hourly workers, location specific.

We work with people that do construction and non location specific roles.

So I'm going to say this and this is something you can think about as other people are saying, oh, well, it works in yours, but not with us.

If you start looking at work from the lens of autonomy and accountability.

Right.

It starts to make sense in your brain that the achievement of results in the most efficient and effective way possible works with anyone in any job.

So somebody might say, well, bus drivers can't do it.

And I'll say, okay, have you ever gotten on a bus and had the bus driver be rude to you, the customer?

And you know, it's little things like that.

Right.

I hadn't been on a bus for I don't know how many years and I had to get on a bus one day.

I don't know how much it costs.

I don't know if they're using credit cards on the buses yet.

You know what I mean?

I have no contacts so I got on and what I looked at, I didn't know what to do.

So I asked the bus driver and he was like so irritated.

But that's your job, is to move people, but it's also to help people and make sure their experience is good through that, whatever that interaction is.

So again, if you look at it out that lens, I mean, have you ever called a company and you're on hold for two and a half hours?

Yep.

Or.

Yep.

Or when you get the person cable contract.

Yeah, yeah.

And they can't they can help you at level one, and they put you up to another level.

You sit on for another hour.

This isn't about the customer.

This is about me doing my time.

And then when the clock ring goes five, I stop.

And I think there's a lot of that going on.

When we work in call centers, it is amazing what happens right when they actually get to help the customer.

One of the measures of a call center is call handle time.

That's how long am I on a call with a customer.

And the first level in this company we work for, they had to be off that call or pass it along to the next level in two minutes.

So just picture this.

I get a call and my computer screen is up and it goes to 159, 158.

Right.

In my case, 7, 156.

So the whole time I'm on, I'm not really.

I'm not helping the customer because I'm watching the clock, because guess what?

If I keep going over call handle time, I'm going to get a performance rating.

That's bad.

So then we said that the cio, I said, this is what we need to do.

We need to take that away.

Then he goes, take it off their screens.

He said to the managers, I don't want you measuring that anymore.

Well, sure enough, what happened?

Pretty soon, level two and level three weren't getting very many calls because level one took care of it.

And how long do you think, on average they were on their phone with a customer?

What do you think?

Two minutes.

Two minutes?

Yep.

Two minutes.

I mean, it's kind of weird, but it's amazing what kind of things are actually bogging people down instead of helping them do a good job.

Yeah, rules, you know, regulations, time clocks on your screen, just all that kind of stuff that I feel not connected to the customer.

I feel like I'm a rule follower and I better not get in trouble.

Right.

But we have too many rules to your point.

Right.

I mean, at some point, you have to let people be people and trust.

I mean, you have to trust them.

If we actually want to come up with this amazing playbooks that tell you exactly what to say, what to do at every single second of your day, then just your job becomes boring, too, and unfulfilling.

And at the end of the day, you give a substandard service to your customers because.

Right.

You don't care.

I mean, you clearly, it doesn't matter.

You're just reading from the playbook anyways.

Yeah.

And you're going to get Paid, so.

Right.

Just do your time.

Yeah.

I like to say, what other place in society do we do time?

Prison.

Okay.

Right.

So we've created this construct that's like you're still in high school, then you go to college and you're free.

You can either fail or succeed, but you know what the outcome is.

And then you get to the workplace and all of a sudden every minute of your time is not in your control anymore.

You're right back into high school.

So it has to change.

We're changing it.

Yeah.

I would imagine another one of the pushbacks you get is, I'm not in the C suite.

I'm not the head decision maker.

This won't work for me, or I have no power to do this or whatever.

Which is, I'm going to guess, you tell me why you wrote the follow up, why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It.

So tell us a little bit more about that book.

And for our managers right now that are listening, tell it.

Tell them why they should pick up a copy.

So first I have to say that people inside organizations that are not in a C suite or not even leadership, and they would catch onto this idea.

And we had people that were, you might describe as zealots.

They got so excited.

You guys are probably zealots.

Right.

Of this idea.

And they would keep talking about it and talking about it and talking about.

And they would get fired.

So early on, we had to help people that were excited about this go about it in the right way so they could keep their job at the same time.

Now, why Managing Sucks, we put that together so it would be more of a field guide for managers on how to go from managing people, time and location to managing work.

And then we find that in many cases, employees aren't really held accountable to the outcome of work, and instead they fill their time with activities that may or may not be aligned with the purpose of the organization.

And we've already talked about that.

And this isn't to say that managers suck.

Some people call the book why Managers Suck and How to Fix It.

No, not that.

Not everyone.

Right.

But instead it's to say that the current system or traditional way we think about work managers are stuck inside the matrix.

Okay, if you think about the matrix, what we come in and do with that book is we unplug them from.

Brings them above the matrix so they can look down into, oh, now I can see what's happening in there.

So we gave them some sort of how to think differently about managing work versus managing people.

And I Think that helped a little bit.

It didn't sell as well as the first book.

And I think the first book was more.

I don't even know the word, but people bought that book and they liked the manifesto.

But when it comes to managing, if you're in a system where time is so important and you're the permission granter, it's really hard to be separate from that because culture is a giant hairball.

And if you start to do something different, the hairball's job is to eat you up and get you back in line and pull you back in there.

And so managers even, who have, like you, Enrique, and you, Christy, you have the will to make a difference.

And it's happening because it's coming from the top and Ro works from the middle out.

So it's innovating in the space between managers and people that do work.

And so that right there is where the sort of problem with work culture exists.

It's, I manage you, we have to get away from that.

I don't manage you, I manage work.

Right.

And you're somebody that does work.

But I'm not telling you what time.

You could figure that out based on what the work is.

So that's what we're trying to help managers do.

We often do workshops just for managers, but not to make them row, to help them think more about outcome based planning.

Get clear with everybody what the outcome is, and then figure out what activities you should be doing instead of the other way around.

Time is interesting.

Christy, I have a question for you.

Okay.

If you get up in the morning, late, you know, and you have to be.

Yeah, I do.

And you have to be in the office by 9 and your alarm goes off at 8:15, how long does it take you to get ready?

I would say at least half that time is talking myself out of bed.

There you go.

It's part of the getting ready, though.

Getting ready is less time actually pulling myself out of bed.

Right.

But I will.

Yes, yes.

Or you'll try to get there.

And what people tell us is if I have an hour and a half before I have to go out the door, I feel that whole time.

But if I only have 15 minutes, I decide what's the most critical to get me to whatever that is, and the extraneous stuff just goes away.

And so time is so weird.

If I have to put in eight hours every day, my brain automatically takes the work and just sort of spreads it out.

And so even if I'm wasting time, six hours a day in meetings, at least I was there and we're having.

That's a problem.

The time clock, the punch clock mentality is in all of our DNA.

And that is really hard to let go of because guess what?

If you come to me and say, well, I only work 20 hours, what's the first thing I'm going to think as a manager?

If you say you only work 20 hours a week, you're lazy.

You're lazy and you must need more work.

What the heck, maybe we don't need you.

Yeah.

So efficiency is not something that's promoted, really.

When there's time clock mentality, it can't.

You have to get rid of that part.

And then when people own all of their time, they're completely autonomous and they have work to do and all these other things in their life.

When they manage that, like we talked earlier, it enriches everything.

My relationships with my family, how business operates, who I am as a person, how I feel about how I connect to our customer.

All of that starts to change.

You would think everybody would just sign up for it, wouldn't you?

Yes, you would.

But.

Well, but then, as you said, right, it's something that's very human and it's been ingrained in us forever.

And ever since we were little at school, I mean, everything kind of works on a time basis almost, right?

You have 30 minutes for this and you have 15 minutes for this.

So I think it's.

It's something that's been, historically speaking, with us and around us forever.

Right.

So I kind of see why people struggle with it, or at least they had.

It's easy to sell.

I think people really become fans of it very quickly.

But then just applying it sometimes me, I mean, we started this company in 2009 with this mentality since the beginning.

And sometimes I still caught myself thinking, well, wait, why am I doing this?

I constantly fall into the.

So it's like you have to get out of the rat race, but you sometimes feel yourself that you're just doing it because that's the way you're used to you doing it, which is not ideal, of course, or efficient.

So it's just the language of work.

Like, we're used to talking about that.

And if you say to somebody, I need you in the office on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, well, why?

Like, we never really ask why that is.

Well, because you collaborate better.

Well, how do we measure that?

How do we know that that's an orthodoxy?

And I think, like you're saying, Enrique, what we do is we just accept those things.

But when you're in a results only work environment, you're working every day to leave that behind.

It's an aspirational journey to overcome inertia.

So keep going.

Yeah.

There's never like we already implemented.

It's like every day.

Every day it's.

Right.

Is that the way it is?

Because that's definitely the way that it feels for us here.

It's not something that will ever be able to fully accomplished.

It's not like a destination that will arrive to.

It's just part of the day to day basis of who we are.

Like, okay, so why is that what's important?

Let's focus on this.

You're taking an aspirational journey and in the purest form, people don't really ever get perfectly there.

Right.

But if you're going in that direction, you're evolving and the current culture is over here and the future culture's here and it's the start and you just keep moving as close as you can.

Yeah, but I think you guys probably.

The rest of the world operates the other way.

So you're also continually.

That's a everyday struggle too.

When everybody else is operating in one direction in the rest of your life and then you're trying to do something different.

Right, exactly.

It's so true.

That's why we have to just.

We have to help everybody.

Yeah, right.

Start to move forward.

Yes.

Because once you actually find another company that has the same culture, then work between those two companies.

Make it's a lot easier, more efficient, seamless.

I love that you said that.

Because we work with an accounting firm and they do billable hours.

Right.

And so that's what clients expect from accounting billable hours.

And so they turned into results only work environment.

We trained them and they're certified and they were having a hard time because they didn't know how to sort of the way they were counting time before was didn't fit into this mindset.

So now they're free and they're autonomous and all that.

So it took them three years to basically train their clients not to be a RO but to go into a value based billing.

Right, Right.

We're going to do this for you by this time.

But the hours it takes to get there are irrelevant.

And so they started to negotiate and agree on a fixed price.

Right now if you're in the organization, you can putz around, futz around and not get there.

But when you know the goal, you can just focus on that.

You might get done early.

Who cares?

It's better for the customer, if that happens.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And there's many professions like that, right?

I mean, lawyers, consultants, it, I mean, everything's like.

Because it's easier to bill by the hour, but, but easier doesn't necessarily mean more efficient, definitely doesn't mean less stressful.

And of course, you're not focusing on the right things, which is what some business need to realize if they want to be better and of course, if they want to compete and to the future.

Because a lot of companies are adopting this new mentality and mindset and they'll just be left out if they don't apply.

They will.

Yeah, I, I 100% agree.

And I would love for you to talk.

I mean, I have so many things I would like you to talk about, but one of, one of them though is retention.

Right.

I think that it's important for other companies to understand how a results only work environment, row or this mentality helps retain talent and acquire talent in the first place.

So could you tell us a little bit more so that our listeners can get your take on retention and row.

Well, so I'm happy to talk about this because attraction and retention is a place where the results only work environment really changes that.

So what employees want today is they're not looking for flexibility.

Right.

They want autonomy and they want to be able to manage their lives and work as part of their life.

But it's the way that they're forced to work they don't want to do anymore.

So just to show you what happens, one of our clients that we've worked with for a few years, the number they, they do surveys and the number one reason, number one, that people come and want to work there is because the results only work environment.

And once they're in, they don't want to leave because they're used to working in this autonomous and accountable fashion.

So they don't want to go back to another company that doesn't do that.

In fact, this company we're working with, their net promoter score increased by 300%.

Wow.

Wow.

So they were also telling all their friends to come on board and then we had this other client and their voluntary turnover rate the first year like went down to zero.

And at the same time, their business was growing and they were hiring more people.

So it creates this, this thing that happens around attraction and retention and how we measure it.

And it says keep the talent you want to keep.

Right.

But the people that are just sort of going along, putting in time and figuring out how to fly under the radar, that doesn't fit anymore.

So now you have a place where adults work.

Right.

Instead of children and you get clear with them about the results.

And you talked about trust earlier today.

I don't think we have to earn trust.

I think we start out with getting clear with people.

Then if they can't get there for whatever reason, it's a performance issue.

And if that just keeps happening, I guess that doesn't work in our company anymore.

You actually have to do your job.

Yeah.

Right.

Yep.

All right.

Thank you for explaining that.

Retention is a huge topic always, especially right now when people are trying to hire and trying to find the right fits.

Another huge topic is work life balance.

And so you're talking about in the book how to achieve a healthy work life Balance.

That phrase is used again and again and again.

So I'm curious how you define that in the context of ro.

How does it contribute to that philosophy?

Because again, I think that's something people are seeking, trying to understand, trying to figure that out for themselves.

So what does that position to you?

Okay, so this will be fun.

So I want your listeners to think about this, if any of your time.

I think it's 163 hours a week or something like that.

168 Is managed by somebody else.

You're never going to achieve work life balance.

So the way that it's achieved is through autonomy.

So I look at all the demands I have in my life all at the same time, and I know when I need to get things done and I know what that is.

And I know grocery shopping and this and that and all that.

And I put that all together in a way that optimizes everything I do.

So think of this.

So I wonder if I told you that you could only shop on Amazon between 8 and 5.

That's it.

I mean, think of that.

It's like our society, like contemporary society is speeding ahead with how we shop and how we view entertainment and all that.

But the workplace is like, nope, you can only do it between 8 and 5, Monday through Friday.

And they're still putting so many parameters around it.

We're never going to be able to match contemporary society as long as our manager or our organization is controlling our work or, excuse me, our time that we work.

So that's the goal.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Let go of that control and how.

So we talked about kind of promoting it within at a couple of different levels.

So how do you either in hiring or when somebody is in the door, how do.

How would you give advice to people Promoting this culture, whether it's just understanding the philosophy or how to execute, or even just what you said about time.

What's the importance of people really explaining that within their teams and during the hiring practice?

What's the benefit and how should they go about doing it?

Because I assume there is, as I think you mentioned before, a little bit of fear, especially if it's new to you, trying to get people to understand this without there's a fear they're going to run rampant with it.

So yeah, run like crazy people like unicorns flying everywhere.

First of all, I have to say this.

The future is not flexibility.

That's the old game and it's a trap.

So what we have to do is we have to listen to social science.

Dan Pink, Robert Harasek, all the people, social scientists have figured out that if you build a workforce on the foundation of autonomy and accountability in equal measures, that's the key.

But it's not easy because we have all of these orthodoxies going on in our heads and I mean that's where we come in.

So what we've done is we've sort of cracked that culture code and we break up traditional mindset, logjam.

And that's what's happening in organizations.

Our brain pulls us back to what we understand and know.

And so when you're trying to explain it or talk about it, the orthodoxies are flying in your head.

And that's why Enrique people say, well that wouldn't work here, it only works here and there.

You know it, it's just comes into your brain.

So that's where we come in and help people because then they feel like at least they're on a path with everybody.

Sometimes people want us to just implement with managers.

No results, only work environment mindset is for every single person in the organization.

And the only way you're going to get there is to all get together and go through the same training so that you can have your wow moments all together.

And then what happens is it's like self correcting.

And I think you've experienced that too.

It's when people are kind of going off sort of in the wrong direction.

The culture pulls them back and corrects them.

So over time you get closer and closer to the ideal.

But you need everybody to have the same freedom and be able to own their work.

One company we worked for said, like own your work was one of their values.

And I'm in one of the sessions and I'm getting to the end of it and one person goes, oh, now I get what own your work means.

Think about that.

We don't own our work, our manager owns it.

But you guys own my time.

So I'll do my best in those 12 meetings that are going nowhere.

Right, That's.

No, that's absolutely true and definitely something that listeners and companies that are listening to this episode are definitely going to think a little bit more about.

For sure.

We're in logistics.

Supply chain professionals are listening to our podcast and the last years have been incredibly challenging for many industries, not only logistics.

Right.

And so how does the results only work environment row apply to like highly stressful situations and industries like, for example, logistics?

What's the impact into the not only employees, but customers, suppliers and everyone that facing challenging or stressful situations?

So I'm going to sound like a broken record, but I have to say the key is autonomy.

Right?

So it's been proven social science, I mentioned all that, but what's happening is we're living in a contemporary world with a 20th century management mindset.

So organizations that already had already certified ro.

Right.

And the pandemic came and whatever, every single organization had a different pain point.

When we hit the pandemic, logistics was a nightmare.

So the interesting thing is that how you think about autonomy is something that's going to be different in every single, every different role.

But the point is that the more you start to try to control people solving the issue, you control it and you tell them when to solve it.

You know, where do they have to sit when they're solving it, what time of the day they have to solve it.

You've now taken the power away from the workforce where people always say, oh, we want people to come up with their own innovative ideas.

So every day from 12 to 1:30, put your computer away and think about innovation.

Right?

Be innovative, go.

Yes, yes, right.

In fact, we had a little bit of that you can work for, right?

Are you kidding me?

What am I, a robot?

You know, right?

So sometimes we do things that are more making us go backwards.

Like if you say, oh, we have too many meetings, okay, so we're going to have no meeting Wednesdays now and then.

And we did this at Best Buy, so no meeting Wednesdays.

So we're all like, okay, what do we do on Wednesday?

Because all we do is go to meetings all the time.

So then Wednesday would come and then we wouldn't be in meeting rooms.

We'd go down to the cafeteria, go different places and then people would say, are you having a meeting?

And we'd say, we're just gathering.

We're just having a gathering.

So it's a technical fix to an adaptive problem.

We're actually making it worse for people.

For one company that said nobody could use their cell phone after 5pm for work, even if you needed to, you couldn't use it.

That's technical.

That's a technical fix to an adaptive problem.

The things we're trying to do to make work better are often backfiring because it's still not giving people autonomy.

Giving me two different places to make coffee isn't autonomy.

It just isn't right.

I think people know that we want.

To have cake and eat it too.

Right?

I mean, you want to have autonomy and let people do what they're supposed to be doing and focusing, but you also want to have the control and it's just letting that control go that I feel is actually very, very hard to do, especially for people that have just been used to this other way of working.

Right.

And you're just right at it now.

You just gotta let it go.

You gotta let it go.

Right.

Stop controlling me.

The system will adjust itself is what you're saying.

Yes.

And what I think what managers don't realize is they're now going to get more control over the actual work because work isn't showing up and going to meetings and carrying paper around.

That's just an activity.

I mean, I can't even tell you how many days I didn't really do anything because I had to go there and put in my time.

And right now I said this when the pandemic first started, I said, mark my words, when we're through this, everybody's going to try.

All the corporate companies are going to try to suck everybody back in the office.

Why?

Because when you're in an office with your office clothes on and you're in a meeting or sitting in a queue, that looks like work.

I feel so much better.

I don't really have to get clear with people because they're showing up and look, they look miserable.

Must be working.

So anyway, that's got to stop.

But anyway, we're going to move past it.

We're doing a lot of hybrid stuff now.

It was interesting to hear that the Googlers, as they're called, the Google employees, they are clamping down more than they were before the pandemic.

I don't know if you've read that article, but they're watching badge swipes.

And if people are tardy and they're going to bring that up in their performance reviews, I'm like what happened?

Right.

It got tighter and tighter and tighter.

It's kind of that rubber band effect.

We let you be free during the pandemic, but no more.

I know you were getting your work done, but I'm just going to ignore that actually work was getting done better.

Oh, we were more productive.

Oh, look, how are business results?

Okay, now we're going to stop doing that now.

We're going to bring everybody in the office and bog everybody down and make everybody mad and not engaged and all of it.

It's like so counterintuitive.

But that's where we have it, that's where we are and we're seeing it everywhere.

Good.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think one thing that really should be considered is like how you tie all this into the compensation.

Because that's where I think most companies fail.

Right.

Because you're still paying for the same reasons and the same things as opposed to once you redirect work towards what makes sense, what the goal should be, then you should pay use for that and then the system will continue to auto correct itself because it's really focusing on what matters for that particular company, which is something very challenging to do as well.

Right, but that is so logical.

Yeah, right.

It's so logical.

It's.

This is your outcome, this is what I need you to achieve.

Right.

But if you do it in less time, I don't feel like you've worked hard enough.

It's just all jumbled up in our DNA around time.

Do you feel like the future, I mean, you're positive and optimistic about the future and we're fully supportive because we love this culture and we'll never let that go.

But as you said, like this rubber band effect that you're mentioning, do you feel.

And what 10 years from now, I mean, what do you foresee?

I mean, at what point we're reaching the tipping point?

Do you see what's your expectation over the next 20 years, 15 years, longer term?

I mean, do you think that.

How do you see societies working?

Oh my gosh, I'm so tired.

20 More years.

No.

Well, I'll tell you what, this is going to take a long time, but the next book I'm writing is called the Autonomy Economy.

What I see happening is over the next five, six years, everybody is going to do their hybrid thing, bring everybody back in the office, all that stops.

We're going to rubber band all the way back and then they're going to realize we still aren't attracting people, we're still not keeping them all that kind of stuff.

And then they're going to go, maybe there's a different way.

And then a few more companies will come to us and we'll take them through the migration, but it's not going to be quick.

The mindset around how work needs to be is so ingrained.

To undo that is monumental.

And so I applaud you guys because you want that kind of environment.

You're not really afraid of it.

You embrace it.

And so we need to find more people like you guys to take a chance.

Right.

And do a pilot.

I think sometimes what happens, especially with other organizations that have come to us, if we tried it, but it didn't work, there's things missing.

Why you gave me a box of bolts and I'm supposed to put a car together, and I miss some of the pieces.

And so then it's not optimized.

And I think a lot of times that senior leadership way at the top see the change as something for everybody else.

And then when they watch everybody else not coming into the office every day, but their mindset hasn't shifted, then they bring them all back in.

So everybody has to go through that.

And I think once you get to that level, you've worked your whole life to get to that level, and it works in your head, like, you don't see it any other way.

So it's hard to flip your mindset around.

We're in a whole new time of life right now.

We're in a whole new.

And we're still acting like we have two TVs, and we have to get up and go churn the channel and run and get our snack during the commercials.

We're just not keeping up.

The workplace isn't.

But it'll get there someday.

And I keep at it.

Absolutely.

Well, for sure.

And everyone that's listening, that's trying this culture has said, yes, just keep at it.

Right.

I mean, we see.

We have offices around the world, and you can totally see the different stages.

Right.

Some offices that are just starting, and you start to see the same dynamics and.

Yeah, just.

Just don't give up.

Don't give up.

And I think keep it up.

It'll be great at the end, as you said, Jodi.

And thank you so much, Christy.

I think you had a.

Well, we could actually ask questions for the next hour or two, but you have.

You have one or two.

Wrap it up.

Right?

Asking for a friend.

Yeah.

So for let.

Before we do wrap up, I want to talk.

We've talked philosophy, we've talked challenges.

We've talked outcomes and we've talked a couple of examples of what not to do.

So outside of reading the books, which we of course recommend, what are.

If somebody is kind of curious about this or says, yes, this is the philosophy for us, but how, how, how, what are a couple of those first good steps to take to lay a strong foundation?

So number one, Enrique will send you a book.

That's right, done.

Reach out to me.

If you listen to this episode, we will send you a copy.

So what people need to do and think about, I think first, what's really important is to start listening to how you talk about work with your people.

Right?

Ask yourself, am I talking about work or am I talking about something irrelevant?

If I say you need to be in on Monday, that's irrelevant.

What do you need?

And then I decide whether I come in or not because I don't even know what you need.

How am I supposed to know?

So start to listen to those things that sound traditional and think about how that's permeating everything.

Second thing, go to our website.

So gorow.com and you'll see some things there.

We have an autonomy guide, it's a free download.

You'll see some stuff there that can help you begin to make that shift in your own mind.

And you're going to find like people that agree without needs to shade, especially millennials of the next generation.

They're like, yeah, this is how it's supposed to be.

So it'll help you gather in some of the people that are like minded.

And the more you can coalesce with other people, the better chance you have of getting the leadership ear around how work can be better for everybody and how business can be better and community can be better.

Just don't give up.

Come to our site, we'll help you.

That's right.

That's what we're here for.

Thank you so much.

This has been fantastic.

To read your words and then speak to you.

This is great.

To shed even more light.

GoRow.com is the website.

Where else can people find you and learn about you or follow you?

I'm on Twitter, I'm on all of social media, LinkedIn.

I think I'm on Instagram now.

I tried to do that for a while, wasn't very good at it.

Okay, so perhaps LinkedIn.

Yeah, yeah, I would say LinkedIn's book results only work environment has a Facebook page.

There's a rural group on LinkedIn.

So if there's places that you want to just go ahead and get more messaging from us.

Hear how other people are engaging in it.

Social media.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Yep.

Jodi, thank you so much.

It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Huge fans.

We congratulate you and applaud you for what you guys have achieved.

We're very proud of being part of the movement, if you will.

And so thank you so much.

This has been.

Yeah.

One of my dreams come true, actually.

So thanks for participating and for everyone that's listening, if you liked and enjoyed conversations like the one we had today with Jody, don't forget to subscribe.

It's Enrique Alvarez with logistics, with Purpose.

And Christy, see you later.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's great to be here with you guys.

See you soon.

Sam.