I first read about the Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) in the book "Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It" by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson. The central shorthand for breaking through to talking about results rather than attendance as a measure of work is:
TIME + PHYSICAL PRESENCE != RESULTS
And yes, they do in fact agree with masklinn's comment that if someone can finish their job in a few hours instead of 40, that the person is perfectly free to take the rest of the time to do other (non-work) things. The job of management is to come up with tasks that are important to the business, and that justify the person's continuing to work there (aka results).
As for the "sucking", they go into it in detail in the book, but I also like Paul Graham's "You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss".
TIME + PHYSICAL PRESENCE != RESULTS
And yes, they do in fact agree with masklinn's comment that if someone can finish their job in a few hours instead of 40, that the person is perfectly free to take the rest of the time to do other (non-work) things. The job of management is to come up with tasks that are important to the business, and that justify the person's continuing to work there (aka results).
As for the "sucking", they go into it in detail in the book, but I also like Paul Graham's "You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss".
http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html
Hmm. That probably seems like a suck-up, I just realized I am posting on HN. :)