Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It: A Results-Only Guide to Taking Control of Work, Not People

Epilogue

We hope that as you’ve read this book, you’ve had a feeling stirring inside you that you may not have felt before. If you’re a manager, it might have felt like your stomach was sinking during the first few chapters, like you feel during the first part of a roller coaster drop after you’ve eaten a big lunch with an even bigger dessert. But hopefully by now, you’re feeling like you’re on firm ground again, and any nausea you may have had is subsiding. Most of all, we hope you’re spurred to take action, to change some of the ways you’ve been operating just because “that’s the way they’ve been done” for decades. If you’re an employee—anywhere—you might feel like there’s a big present in front of you that you may or may not be able to open. Some of you may feel frustration; others might experience indescribable excitement. No matter what the feeling, these pages hold the promise of what this rising age of “management” will set in motion for you: finally, an opportunity to use your adult brains to do what’s best for your work—and your life—every single day.

There is something that no one who reads this book will be able to deny, regardless of position in an organization: the deep societal impact that will occur once this age of management comes on full force. As we first started moving a Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) across Best Buy headquarters, and even into our first subsequent client sites, we’d often hear, “Who do you think you are? You’re telling us about this utopia ...