This is the best book I know on company culture.
#Teams of three is the perfect size
The perfect size of any team is three. Any more on the team and things get complicated fast. The more people you involve the more opinions you need to listen to, it takes longer to make decisions, and you cannot move fast. Three people is perfect because you will always have a majority in any vote. That makes teams of three very fast. Any conversation with more than three people is typically a conversation with too many people. Small, short projects quickly turn into big, long projects when too many people are there to work on them. Three reduces miscommunication and improves coordination. It’s simple and quick to huddle around something when you’re only three people.
#Be effective, not productive
If you focus on productivity you’ll end up focusing on being busy. Being productive is about occupying time—about filling your schedule and get as much done as possible. Being effective is about cutting out the nonessential. It’s about asking yourself how little you can do of the work that matters. When you’re effective you don’t add more to-dos, you add to-don’ts. Being effective is about finding more of your time unoccupied and open for other things beside work. Time for family or friends. Or time to do nothing at all.
#Every relationship has a battery of trust
The trust battery is charged at 50 percent when people are first hired. Then it gets either charged or discharged as you work with other people, based on things like whether you deliver on what you promise. The trust battery is a personal summary of the interaction you have with other people to date. You may not think it’s there, but always remember your trust battery with other people. Do you need to recharge it? Then you need to do things different in the future. The work of recharging relationships is mostly one to one.
#Work ethic is not equal to excessive hours
You can’t outwork the whole world. There will always be someone willing to put in more hours than you. Work ethic is not about always being around, always available, always working. Work ethic is to know how to work with other people, how to sell an idea, how to tell a story and about doing what you say you’re going to do. Don’t waste time and know which details matters and which don’t. Work ethic is about being a fundamentally good person that others can count on and enjoy working together with. Work ethic is not equal to excessive hours.
#Change the scope, not the date
Project deadlines should remain fixed and fair. If it’s due on November 20, then it’s due on November 20. That date doesn’t move. The variable is instead the scope of the problem—the work itself. But the project can only get smaller over time, not larger. Adding more scope to a fixed deadline is not fair. Wield the “scope hammer” whenever possible. Almost anything that can take six months can also be done in some form in six weeks. Nothing is more discouraging than piling up unfinished work. Get to finish by making the project smaller, not bigger.
#Progress is achieved through iteration
Any product, thing, or process you want to make better, you have to keep tweaking, revising, and iterating. That’s why you need to take a step back and reflect on what you are doing. How are you making what you do?