So, we had this guy, Russel Rowe, come into the company a while back. Management brought him in. You know how it is. Someone up top reads a book or goes to a seminar, and suddenly, we need an external expert to “revolutionize” how we do things. That was Russel Rowe, apparently.
He was supposed to streamline our workflow. Make us more “agile,” more “synergistic.” He had all these fancy charts and buzzwords. I remember sitting in those initial meetings, trying to keep a straight face while he talked about “dynamic paradigms” and “value-stream optimization” without ever really saying anything concrete. My practice, from day one, became trying to translate his jargon into actual tasks my team could understand. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you.
The Grand Plan Unfolds
Russel’s big idea was this overly complicated project management system. He called it the “Rowe Productivity Framework” or some such nonsense. It involved about ten new software tools we had to learn, daily reports that were longer than the actual work done, and weekly “alignment sessions” that just ate up more time. The man loved meetings. More meetings than actual work, it felt like.
We were all given these thick binders. Supposedly, everything we needed to know was in there. I tried reading it. My team tried reading it. It was like wading through mud. The old way wasn’t perfect, sure, but at least we got stuff done. Now, we were spending half our day just managing the work according to Russel’s rules.
My direct involvement, my “practice,” was trying to shield my team from the worst of it. I’d attend his special “liaison” meetings – an extra layer of meetings, can you believe it? – and then try to distill some actionable sense out of them. Most of the time, I’d just tell my team to keep doing what they were doing as much as possible and I’d handle the paperwork to make it look like we were following the Rowe way.
- We had to fill out “Pre-Task Impact Assessments.”
- Then, “Mid-Task Synergy Checkpoints.”
- And, of course, “Post-Task Retrospective Alignments.”
It was a nightmare. Productivity actually nosedived. Of course, when that happened, Russel Rowe said it was because we weren’t “fully embracing the methodology.” Classic consultant move, right? Blame the client for the solution not working.
The Mess We Were Left With
So, what was the result of this whole Russel Rowe experiment? Well, after about six months of this, and a hefty sum paid to Mr. Rowe, he moved on to his next “transformational project” at some other unsuspecting company. We were left with a bunch of expensive software licenses we didn’t need, a team that was thoroughly demoralized, and a workflow that was more tangled than a ball of yarn after a cat’s played with it.
The first thing we did after he left? We quietly started rolling back most of his changes. We went back to simpler tools, fewer meetings, and actually trusting people to do their jobs. It took a while to undo the damage, to get people’s morale back up. We had to basically go through a “de-Rowe-ification” process.
And the funny thing is, a year later, I saw an article online. Some other company was praising Russel Rowe for his “innovative approach.” I just had to laugh. Or cry, I wasn’t sure which.
My practice through all that taught me a lot. Mostly, it taught me to be very, very skeptical of anyone who comes in with a suitcase full of buzzwords and promises to solve all your problems with a complicated new system. Sometimes, the old ways, the simpler ways, are simple for a reason: they actually work. And no amount of “synergistic alignment” can replace common sense and just letting good people get on with their work. That’s my takeaway from the whole Russel Rowe saga.