It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work: A Practical Guide to Sustainable Productivity Through Calm Company Culture and Effective Leadership

It's a great book which tells you everything that is wrong with the corporate culture, and how you don't need to run a company like that to be profitable. This book introduces the work culture of empathy, of passion for work, and an equal passion for life outside work, where you don't treat people as commodities. I have always tried to implement it, and was heartening to see someone talk about it openly, finally. A must read for everyone. It's a Healthy Work Culture 101 guide.

This book was a refreshing read and helped put many things in perspective which we otherwise have taken for granted in anything that we do. Sure, it will take some courage and some experimentation to accept some of the ideas and it's easy to dismiss some as "it was possible because the authors were founders and could thus do it", but there are some good points in the book that should be easy to implement in your own teams without disrupting the broader "norms" and am sure it will be helpful.

Extremely well written book which I found an enjoyable read. The short and well written sections (if I can call it that) provided useful perspective and provoked thinking about work!

Must read for who working more than 8 hours in IT industry or any others. Its not influence to not work more hours, but its explained take it work smartly. And many more things.... A must read book!

I haven’t read the book yet. I can say it’s going to be very good for me though. However I am giving a 3 star for the condition of the book delivered. The book presents as not in top 1st class condition. That’s is the only reason I will give this a 3 star. Will give a full review once finished reading

Good with fresh insights. Concepts were refreshing to read and worth pondering about in a lot of ways. They were good.

Book adds a new perspective to readers mind, we don’t need to follow all the advices given here... but i found some of the truly exceptional ideas that I could implement immediately in my org. In my suggestion, everyone must read the book once and absorb what they like at their own discretion.

Must read especially for those in leadership positions or company owners who set the workplace culture.

Un petit chef d'œuvre de simplicité, de conseils pratiques et positifs. Comment construire une entreprise "calme" en suivant quelques règles simples. 225 pages, 66 thèmes = 3 pages par thème. La lecture est facile, rapide, chacun des thèmes abordés, des conseils prodigués est en apparence évident, mais c'est en fait une remise en cause totale des principes de management de l'immense majorité des entreprises, et en particulier des plus grandes. Un grand merci à ces deux dirigeants qui montrent que l'on peut réussir, très bien, sans créer de stress inutile pour ses collaborateurs.

I am a BaseCamp user and a great fan of DHH, however I read the book without expectations or reverence. It's a great product, very easy to read but very effective. Being the "hustler gonna hustler" kind of guy, I find it quite fascinating. Very recommended especially if you're the 24/7 kind of worker.

And I recommend this book, one of the best book I ever read

This book is written in easily comprehensible, quick-to-read essays. The advice generally agrees with what I’ve been trying to achieve as a development manager over the past 20 years, although I had never articulated it so clearly. There are also many concepts I hadn’t put much thought into and really appreciated the very concise summaries of how the authors arrived at the described decision. These are ideas that should be shared and discussed within your own company to determine what can and can’t work in your own corporate culture. Recommended for anyone running a startup or working at a company that constantly feels out of control.

This is Jason Fried and David Heinemeier's fourth collaboration on a book after co-founding a software company, Basecamp. Each of the four books has a core thesis. For the latest: "A business is a collection of choices. Every day is a new chance to make a new choice, a different choice...no matter where you live in an organization, you can start making better choices. Choices that chip away at crazy and get closer to calm. A calm company is a choice. Make it yours." That is the WHAT of this book. Fried and Hansson consider the WHY self-evident, although for many -- if not most -- people it probably isn't. They wrote their book to explain HOW to avoid or eliminate craziness. "Your company is a product. Yes, the things you make are products (or services) but your company is the thing that makes those things. That's why your company should be your best product...progress is achieved through iteration. If you want to make a product better, you have to keep tweaking, revising, and iterating. The same thing is true with the company." Check out the list on the dust cover. The insane dozen include 80-hour weeks, endless meetings, overflowing inboxes, unrealistic deadlines, and no time to think. All of them and others, Fried and Hansson insist, are symptoms of organizational craziness with which most of us can identity. Iteration of crazy polices and procedures can undermine and eventually destroy a company. Years ago, I came across the results of a contest conducted by a magazine that solicited "Dilbert Quotations": comments by real-life Dilbert-type managers. These were among the finalists: o "What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter." (executive at Lykes Lines Shipping) o "E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business." (Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company) o "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say." (Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation) o "We all know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees." (Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division) And here's the winner: "As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks." (Fred Dales at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, WA) In his book Leading Change, James O'Toole suggests that the greatest resistance to change tends to be cultural in nature, the result of what he characterizes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." That's true but never underestimate how much damage lazy and ignorant managers can do at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise. Near the end of the book, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson share these thoughts about having a calm workplace. Running Basecamp, "we've always kept our costs in check and never made a move that would push us back from black to red. Why? Because crazy's in the red. Calm's in the black." Also, "revenue is no defense because revenue without a profit margin isn't going to save you. You can easily go broke generating revenue -- many companies have. But you can't go broke generating a profit. "Profit means time to think, space to explore. It means being in control of your own destiny and schedule. "Without profit, something is always on fire. When companies talk about burn rates, two things are burning: money and people. One you're burning up, one you're burning out." These brief excerpts suggest a practical, pragmatic mindset that can guide and inform the decision-making process by leaders of almost all organizations, whatever their size and nature may be. Organizational craziness really can be avoided or eliminated by common sense. Moreover, more and better work really can be completed at work by getting rid of distractions and interruptions, most of which are generated internally rather than externally. HOW to accomplish these separate but interdependent objectives? The mindset needed is thoroughly explained in this book.