Peopleware review - NFHN Reader

I just finished reading Peopleware, and just realized how many companies are doin’ it wrong! For those who don’t know, peopleware is THE BIBLE for people, productivity and team/happiness management. This is not just my opinion:

Here’s my take in short, brief points (there’s a great deal of reasoning behind each point, but for that read the book!) :

Be realistic, humane in your expectations.
Respect, preserve and nurture individuality in people. More mechanizing = less happiness.
Provide room/space for things other than day-to-day works.
No schedule pressure = better productivity.
Quality ∝ Productivity.
There’s no magic bullet to increase productivity.
Workplace = bang for buck. Cost saved in designing an inferior workplace < Long term costs of getting things done.
Individuality in workplace, over conventional “uniform” workplace. Let people control a part of workplace. That way they’ll love workplace. Make them feel at home.
Most productive people are better in a 10:1 ratio than least productive people.
^^ The above mentioned productive people tend to gravitate to good organizations. ∴ Good organizations are 10x better than worst. This also reminds me of Steve Jobs’ team building principles - 10 A people can run circles around 50 B people. Same with Joel’s concept of Hitting the High Notes.
Flow (psychology) is one of the most important factors to be considered.
Hours put in by people (body hours) ≠ meaningful hours. In fact, less concentrated hours > more dilute hours. One should try to capture brain time rather than body time. Calculations done by body-hours are futile.
“Thinking time” should be provisioned.
“Do Not Disturb” policy, at least during some time. Interruption-consciousness helps to reduce interruptions.
Get the right people, make them happy, turn them loose.
Personal appearance ≠ Capability. Professionalism should only be determined by knowledge-ability and competency.
Hire based on past works.
Less turnover means people have 10+ years of experience before being in a management position. This way, some of the strongest organizations have low, flat hierarchy.
People leave because they don’t feel indispensable. How would people be loyal to an organization that views its people as replaceable resources?
Organizations pre-occupied with being the best usually take interest in people.
If peer stories are good, people stay.
Swamp of paperwork, absence of responsibility, loss of motivation, etc. will damage competent people’s efforts.
Responsibility - people want it but won’t take it until they are given the freedom to control their success.
People want credibility, respect and reward. According to Daniel Pink, they want Autonomy, mastery and purpose.
Under heavy restrictions, people will do exactly what is specified, giving their minimum output to survive.
Use minimal proven standards and processes, and keep changing to keep people interested.
Challenges are just an instruments for team to come together.
A person who can help ‘jell’ together a team, is worth more than two who do the work. Example in the history - Charles Schwab.
It takes quite a bit of interpersonal skills to get people to accept corporate goals. Don’t just expect them to understand easily.
In upper ranks, there are strong incentives for people to accept corporate goals, but at the bottom (where real work happens), we count on 'professionalism’ of people. This basically calls for Joel’s identity management method.
Jelled team: Low turnover, strong sense of identity, sense of eliteness, joint ownership of product, obvious enjoyment.
It doesn’t matter how ludicrous a manner in which a jelled team operates, as long as it is effective.
Factors that prevent jelling: 1) Defensive management (lack of trust). 2) Bureaucracy 3) Physical separation of team 4) Fragmentation of time - too many things to focus at a time 5) Low quality work 6) Phony deadlines.

Good managers give a lot of chances/occassions for the team to succeed. It can be non-work related too.
The team shouldn’t feel “managed”.
Managers of well workers are careful to respect the autonomy.
Manager should use quality of product as a quantifiable factor rather than hours put in by workers.
The team makes such managers look good.
Let people select work and co-workers.
Best bosses exercise natural authority - in the area of their expertise, and leaves other things to workers where they are good at.
Team chemistry - mix of trust, competence, mutual esteem and well person sociology. Result - people are at ease, having a good time, enjoying interactions with their co-workers.
Ingredients for team chemistry - Cult of quality, lots of satisfying closures, sense of eliteness, heterogenity. One should preserve such successful teams, and provide strategic direction (not tactful). There should be a sense of uniqueness to everybody (e.g. Xerox employees fly first class). Such teams will reward managers, to protect the chemistry.
Work should be fun - pilot projects, war games, brainstorming, training, trips, conferences, celebrations and retreats.
Let free electrons (gurus, fellows, intrapreneurs) define their own job. They should have a strong say in everything. They contribute disproportionately due to organization’s faith in them. Don’t try to direct them as their own direction will contribute more to the organization.

Big thanks to - Bernard