It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson

Author:Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Non-Fiction, Business, Management, Self Help, Economics
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

Not a single benefit aimed at trapping people at the office. Not a single benefit that would make someone prefer to be at work rather than at home. Not a single benefit that puts work ahead of life. Instead, plenty of reasons to close the laptop at a reasonable time so that there’s time to learn, cook, work out, and live life with family and friends.

Library Rules

Whoever managed to rebrand the typical open-plan office—with all its noise, lack of privacy, and resulting interruptions—as something hip and modern deserves a damn medal from the Committee of Irritating Distractions. Such offices are great at one thing: packing in as many people as possible at the expense of the individual.

Open-plan offices suck at providing an environment for calm, creative work done by professionals who need peace, quiet, privacy, and space to think and do their best.

It’s even worse when you mix professions with different requirements. When sales or service people, who often need to be loud and jovial on the phone, have to share accommodations with people who need long stretches of quiet, you’re not only destroying productivity, you’re fomenting resentment.

In spaces like that, distractions spread like viruses. Before you know it, everyone’s infected.

While closed, private individual offices are one reasonable solution, if everyone doesn’t get one you’ll be breeding bitterness. But there’s good news: You don’t have to give up on the open-plan office per se, but you do need to give up on the typical open-office mindset.

That’s what we did with our Chicago office at Basecamp. Rather than thinking of it as an office, we think of it as a library. In fact, we call our guiding principle: Library Rules.

Walk into a library anywhere in the world and you’ll notice the same thing: It’s quiet and calm. Everyone knows how to behave in a library. In fact, few things transcend cultures like library behavior. It’s a place where people go to read, think, study, focus, and work. And the hushed, respectful environment reflects that.

Isn’t that what an office should be?

People who visit our office for the first time are startled by the silence and serenity. It doesn’t look, sound, or behave like a traditional office. That’s because it’s really a library for work rather than an office for distraction.

In our office, if someone’s at their desk, we assume they’re deep in thought and focused on their work. That means we don’t walk up to them and interrupt them. It also means conversations should be kept to a whisper so as not to disturb anyone who could possibly hear you. Quiet runs the show.

To account for the need for the occasional full-volume collaboration, we’ve designated a handful of small rooms in the center of the office where people can go to if they need to work on something together (or make a private call).

A few simple choices, a shift in mindset, and a cultural respect for everyone’s time, attention, focus, and work are all that’s necessary to make Library Rules your rules. People already instinctively know Library Rules, they just need to practice them at the office, too.

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