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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
This book was like therapy for me. It comforted me in a way that I was not expecting. Although a lot of it seemed aspirational and not all that realistic, I enjoyed the passion in believing that’s there’s a better way! A better way to build work culture, a better way to increase employee happiness, a better way to create goals (or not have any at all other than to be profitable!), a better way to be productive (focus on being effective instead). So many great points that I plan to refer back to over and over again.
Jason Fried and DHH run their software company in a way that seems to be the opposite of typical tech startups. It’s not really different, it is a (profitable) business after all, they just have different priorities and therefore make different choices. This quote from the book sums it up nicely:
“A business is a collection of choices. Every day is a new chance to make a new choice, a different choice”
Throughout their book of short essays, they expand on the business choices they have made as they strive to create a ‘calm’ workplace, as opposed to a ‘crazy’ one. The essays are grouped into several topics:
• Curb Your Ambition – To strive for a calm workplace, forgo the mindset of ‘market domination’, chasing unreasonable goals and the idea of requiring pain to make progress. Choose
• Defend Your Time – To strive for a calm workplace, focus on quality time at work and away from work rather than tricks to push employees to burnout.
• Feed Your Culture – To strive for a calm workplace, support work happening during work hours and encourage non-work hours to be a recharging time. Drop common ideas about salary and benefits in favor of a simpler more equitable approach and offer benefits that encourage work-life balance.
• Dissect Your Process – To strive for a calm workplace, use deadlines that fix the date but vary (downward) the scope to be fair to employees impacted by bad scope management. Practice disagree-and-commit to allow all voices to be heard but not allow progress to come to a halt.
• Mind Your Business – To strive for a calm workplace, take reasonable calculated risks, focus on being profitable, do not over promise and remember that the easy part is the launch, the hard work is to stay in business after launch.
I am a software developer and I use the same programming language and framework used by the Basecamp team. I have followed their work since they were name 37Signals.com, so I started with a positive opinion of the authors and their business perspective before I read this book. The thing I appreciate most about the book is the clear, simple way they explain their priority and rational for their collection of choices. If I were to one day run my own software company, I expect to have the same priorities and I would strive for a calm workplace.
“A business is a collection of choices. Every day is a new chance to make a new choice, a different choice”
Throughout their book of short essays, they expand on the business choices they have made as they strive to create a ‘calm’ workplace, as opposed to a ‘crazy’ one. The essays are grouped into several topics:
• Curb Your Ambition – To strive for a calm workplace, forgo the mindset of ‘market domination’, chasing unreasonable goals and the idea of requiring pain to make progress. Choose
• Defend Your Time – To strive for a calm workplace, focus on quality time at work and away from work rather than tricks to push employees to burnout.
• Feed Your Culture – To strive for a calm workplace, support work happening during work hours and encourage non-work hours to be a recharging time. Drop common ideas about salary and benefits in favor of a simpler more equitable approach and offer benefits that encourage work-life balance.
• Dissect Your Process – To strive for a calm workplace, use deadlines that fix the date but vary (downward) the scope to be fair to employees impacted by bad scope management. Practice disagree-and-commit to allow all voices to be heard but not allow progress to come to a halt.
• Mind Your Business – To strive for a calm workplace, take reasonable calculated risks, focus on being profitable, do not over promise and remember that the easy part is the launch, the hard work is to stay in business after launch.
I am a software developer and I use the same programming language and framework used by the Basecamp team. I have followed their work since they were name 37Signals.com, so I started with a positive opinion of the authors and their business perspective before I read this book. The thing I appreciate most about the book is the clear, simple way they explain their priority and rational for their collection of choices. If I were to one day run my own software company, I expect to have the same priorities and I would strive for a calm workplace.
I love the premise of this book, and some of its content.
The authors are right: there are ways to run a company, and build corporate culture, and put quality of life of your employees first, and grow and change. It's not that hard, and more companies can and should do it.
But the way this book is written annoys me. It is a pamphlet full of chapters written like those quasi-prose poems that people on LinkedIn who list their job as "Thought Leader" post in your feed about How They Can't Believe This Business Thing Is So Profound.
And every sentence gets its own line.
Like they're practicing the TED talk they think they'll be giving in a year.
And it's a little too high on its own supply for my liking.
That said: it's a quick plane read, and the ideas at its heart are good.
The authors are right: there are ways to run a company, and build corporate culture, and put quality of life of your employees first, and grow and change. It's not that hard, and more companies can and should do it.
But the way this book is written annoys me. It is a pamphlet full of chapters written like those quasi-prose poems that people on LinkedIn who list their job as "Thought Leader" post in your feed about How They Can't Believe This Business Thing Is So Profound.
And every sentence gets its own line.
Like they're practicing the TED talk they think they'll be giving in a year.
And it's a little too high on its own supply for my liking.
That said: it's a quick plane read, and the ideas at its heart are good.
Addresses some good work culture practice (a lot of them open doors), but is mostly a long advertorial about how "fantastic" the company of Basecamp is following all these practices
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
informative
fast-paced
Very similar in tone and style to their previous books, it spends a very brief time on each of the principles, without going into the “how-to” or through the specific steps. It offers an interesting and oftentimes contrary perspective. It’s a quick read, and You’ll walk away with at least a few ideas of things you might like to try or do differently.
What I like about this book is that it gives alternative perspectives on certain "truths" in Saas business. It shows how things might work out the calmer way, by not jump on the growth at all cost track. I definitely marked some quotes to revisit them when I will get again in more troublesome waters.
On the other hand, the reason why I only gave 3 stars, is that the book doesn't hold a lot of insights about critical situation which makes it a bit hard to believe. It stand there telling you: It doesn't have to be crazy at work. On doing a transition etc. it is not much of a help.
Still, it is a good book if you search for a complete opposite opinion for those growth at all costs advice.
On the other hand, the reason why I only gave 3 stars, is that the book doesn't hold a lot of insights about critical situation which makes it a bit hard to believe. It stand there telling you: It doesn't have to be crazy at work. On doing a transition etc. it is not much of a help.
Still, it is a good book if you search for a complete opposite opinion for those growth at all costs advice.
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
I wouldn't exactly call this a 'book', but more like a collection of articles/blog posts - short, concise, and to the point; which I appreciated more, since I believe most non-fiction books to be very tiring precisely because they choose to express a simple idea in way too many words or even chapters.
I've been meaning to read it for years, but somehow ended up reading it right when I needed it the most. Especially if you are working in the tech industry, you will find that Jason Fried paints a very good picture of the toxic corporate environment and the hardcore competitiveness and grit culture you find in tech companies. With each chapter, he explains not only the bad and the ugly that every corporate worker experiences, but also how he & his co-founder managed to change this at Basecamp. His experience and the solutions he proposes to change the norm are quite interesting and, as an employee in a big tech company myself, I was glad to find there is still hope for this industry – that someone out there could and DID do it differently, that it’s a choice and, given the right circumstances, others could make better choices for their employees too.
Although there aren't any ground-breaking tips and very few actionable steps you can take away from it (I only say this because Basecamp’s business model is an exception, an outlier, it cannot be feasible for all kinds of organizations and it's definitely not feasible for those who work in big tech, only in startups/smaller scale companies), I believe this ‘book’ is essential for any manager/team leader out there, no matter the field they work in or their level of experience. If not to serve as an inspiration, then at least to gather insights into what your workers might be unhappy about in the workplace.
P.S.: I must also note how the entire ‘book’ is a brilliant employer branding & PR execution for Basecamp and its founders. It might not have been meant as such (who knows), but I don’t see how any reader could finish this text without at least looking up Basecamp online or thinking this sounds like a dream job.
I've been meaning to read it for years, but somehow ended up reading it right when I needed it the most. Especially if you are working in the tech industry, you will find that Jason Fried paints a very good picture of the toxic corporate environment and the hardcore competitiveness and grit culture you find in tech companies. With each chapter, he explains not only the bad and the ugly that every corporate worker experiences, but also how he & his co-founder managed to change this at Basecamp. His experience and the solutions he proposes to change the norm are quite interesting and, as an employee in a big tech company myself, I was glad to find there is still hope for this industry – that someone out there could and DID do it differently, that it’s a choice and, given the right circumstances, others could make better choices for their employees too.
Although there aren't any ground-breaking tips and very few actionable steps you can take away from it (I only say this because Basecamp’s business model is an exception, an outlier, it cannot be feasible for all kinds of organizations and it's definitely not feasible for those who work in big tech, only in startups/smaller scale companies), I believe this ‘book’ is essential for any manager/team leader out there, no matter the field they work in or their level of experience. If not to serve as an inspiration, then at least to gather insights into what your workers might be unhappy about in the workplace.
P.S.: I must also note how the entire ‘book’ is a brilliant employer branding & PR execution for Basecamp and its founders. It might not have been meant as such (who knows), but I don’t see how any reader could finish this text without at least looking up Basecamp online or thinking this sounds like a dream job.
Interesting book, containing some good tips on having work rules and practices.