Sublime

[DL99] Tom Demarco and Timothy Lister. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Dorset House, New York, NY, second edition, 1999.

Despite the communicated intent of our senior leadership, no one wanted to give up their best talent to fill what appeared to be a remote position, especially as the intensity of the war increased. Moreover, few high performers would want to leave their familiar, intimate home unit in favor of this isolating job. On top of these concerns, the logic

As he told Financial World magazine in 1978, “I don’t reserve any day-to-day responsibilities for myself, so I don’t get into any particular rut. I do not define my job in any rigid terms but in terms of having the freedom to do whatever seems to be in the best interests of the company at any time.”

what constituted this prevailing system of management as Deming understood it, eventually settling on eight basic elements:1 Management by measurement: – Focusing on short-term metrics – Devaluing intangibles (“You can only measure 3 percent of what matters” – W.E. Deming) Compliance-based cultures – Getting ahead by pleasing the boss – Management

I was embracing what I came to call Lazy Leadership: the idea that a CEO’s job is not to do all the work, but more importantly to design the machine and systems. Not a player on the field. Not the coach. But the owner, sitting up in a little box at the top of the arena, passively observing until the next critical fifty-thousand-foot decision had to

The biggest change in regard to training is, of course, that employees are in charge of their own learning; there is no HR function that defines training programs and determines who can attend what training programs or at what point.

The traditional German armies, with “their linear tactics, iron discipline, blind obedience and intolerance of independent action,”9 were initially unequipped to deal with Napoleon’s approach. Recognizing the need for a new strategy, the Germans developed Auftragstaktik or what we now call commander’s intent, which is the idea of sharing the

can only say what has worked for me, but this is the process I recommend. It is based on company size: At zero to fifteen people, I wouldn’t worry about this dilemma, just stay heads down coding and building product. At fifteen to twenty people, you need to start the process of delegating your engineering responsibilities. The only way you’re going

Red Organizations are wolf packs. In Amber, the metaphor changes: a good organization should be run like an army.