Ladybug Podcast Book Club discussion

This month's book is an exciting one! It's not uncommon to hear "it's crazy at work" but this book challenges that statement. It DOESN'T have to be crazy at work. This is a super quick read and I'm excited to hear your thoughts!

Read it once released, CTO/tech lead in a startup at the moment so needed some inspiration.

For me the most powerful take-away from the book is that corporate culture should be "hack-able", something malleable that should improve in the journey of the company.

This contrasts the vast majority companies freeze in doing things the moment something kind of works, then treat it as doctrine.

This is the second time I've read this book (the first time I listened to the audio book) and admittedly, while I love 85% of the sentiments throughout the book, I found a few things problematic.

Before we get to the problematic areas, I wanted to note a few things I did enjoy.

Basecamp's outlook on company benefits and how they should aim to get the employees *out* of the office and not keep them in (like free lunches and dinners do) is spot on. And paying for employees' vacations yearly almost forces them to relax, which in this day and age we need.

I also enjoyed how they employ a no-negotiation policy and how they pay their employees the top 10% market value of the employees' roles based out of San Francisco, even though their employees can live wherever they so choose.

I enjoyed the "absorb before responding" workflow. It allows presentation recipients to truly think through a proposal instead of making a snap judgement.

That being said, I also had some issues with the book.

First, the authors, who founded Basecamp, talk a LOT about the benefits their policies have for employees. They preach it time and time again, yet we fail to actually hear about these benefits from the employees themselves. I would have liked to see some quotes from current and past employees testifying to these benefits instead of hearing about them second hand.

Next, the authors seemed to contradict themselves, likely due to a lack of providing details. Each chapter is extremely short, which makes it easy to digest, but it sacrificed clarity that I personally missed.

For example, they harp on the idea of "meeting free work time" and meetings as a last resort, but then later in the book describe how their chat services should be minimally used and you should never make decisions or have long chat threads. How can you possibly maintain solid collaboration, across time zones and with remote employees, if you're encouraged to NOT have meetings and NOT use chats? It seemed a bit contradictory due to a lack of explanation.

This wasn't the only contradictory information I found either. Early in the book they talk about how employees don't have to let the team know where they are or if they're working. They're responsible for getting their work done but don't have to be transparent about when or where that is. However, later in the book they discuss their flexible PTO and flexible workdays and say that if an employee needs to leave early to pick up a child from school they can simply let their team know. So which is it?

There was no mention of mentorship, which I would like to have seen.

And lastly they discussed how consensus is NEVER feasible and you shouldn't aim for consensual decision making. But this is a very American-based mindset. In other parts of the world, they make decisions solely through consensus. America is a very top-down decision-making culture, but not every culture sees it this way. So it would be great if they could have recognized this.

I feel like each chapter reads wonderfully as a standalone, however when put together into a larger narrative, a lack of oversight was apparent. I still enjoyed the book and believe every company can gain something from it, but there were a few things I took issue with that knocked it down a star for me.

This book is going to be my first read with the group. I ordered the book yesterday and excited to read it next week on my vacation. Wish me luck!

Starting to read it. Interesting from the get go.

This is my first book I'm reading for the book club and it was pretty good! I gave it 3 stars because I felt it was centric on their own company and also the writing was a bit weak. I personally related to the feeling of being at the beck and call of work. To hear a company working towards going against the grain was refreshing. I wrote a very quick write up on my blog you can read below or at https://courtneymakesthingsmove.netli... -

The March pick for the Ladybug Podcast Book Club is It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy At Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. As Emma, our ladybug moderator mentioned this book is a super quick read at 240 pages. I gave it three stars because I felt the writing was on the weaker side as it read more like a talk about basecamp’s method of company culture. Although basecamp was their main source of reference, overall the paradigm shift they are proposing for a sustainable workplace is spot on.

The book focuses mostly on the workplace environment that basecamp has thoughtfully implemented and cultivated over their 15+ years in business. Although I would have liked to see more sources backing up some of the claims I appreciated and agreed with most of their sentiments.

As someone who has worked in film I know what it’s like to have sleepless nights and 60 hour work weeks because I thought it showed my worth and dedication to the company. As Fried eluded in the first few pages that this is “not a badge of honor.” Their direction was to create a sustainable work model for not just the company but also the employees. Most of the time I feel companies forget about the sustainability of their workers mental and physical health. I personally have burned out twice, once actually passing out - scary - and I’m someone just starting my career. My body was forcing me to take a break, to tell me to stop for moments of stillness and rest.

When I was reading this book I was reminded of Arianna Huffington’s research on sleep in her book Sleep Revolution and how the

“American Psychological Association found that millennials were the most stressed generation, almost a third saying they can’t sleep because they are “thinking of all the things they need to do or did not get done” and because “they have too many things to do and do not have enough time.”

This thread of working too much - not enough sleep, all work and no play is nothing new. As Fried mentioned you can find these quotes of hustle mentality all around the internet and social media. It was refreshing to read about a company who has tried the typical methods only to recognize it ended up being a the zero-sum situation. Going against that grain they were able to find healthier advantages that suited their business holistically.

C wrote: "This is my first book I'm reading for the book club and it was pretty good! I gave it 3 stars because I felt it was centric on their own company and also the writing was a bit weak. I personally re..."

Totally agree with the "I would have loved to see more sources backing up their claims". I felt that was a huge let down.

This book was a welcome easy read after last months "Invisible Women". I like a lot of the things they are talking about and BaseCamp sounds like a great company who really cares about their employees.

That being said, the book seems to make a few assumptions I am struggling with a bit.

1) American style management. I read Emma's review and I fully agree: this heavy top-down management is quite foreign to me. I know some Belgian companies work like that but it feels very unfamiliar.

2) They seem to be in a priviledged position where the company is doing well enough to be able to provide all these things to their employees. I really hope that when things go south for them, they can keep going like this for as long as possible. For less profitable companies, there is the basic "can i pay my employees" which is already quite a challenge.

Where the book does shine is in showing simple practical guidelines for management and employees to foster a healthier environment.

- "Fakecations" is a big problem for me (still checking in on work even on my days off) and this book has made me consider my own attitude.

- My new client has an open workspace and I try to apply some of the rules in this book to find my calm again, because being bothered every 2 minutes with questions was really frustrating because I feel I get nothing done. So I now always take my headphones, going to try the "opening hours" when the office actually opens again after Corona.

In conclusion: I liked the easy read and the little bits of advice. While I admire the effort they have taken to reduce "the crazy at work", try to keep in mind this will always be a "this worked for us (Basecamp)" story. This doesn't mean ignore everything, but don't just do it because Basecamp does it.

Emma wrote: "C wrote: "This is my first book I'm reading for the book club and it was pretty good! I gave it 3 stars because I felt it was centric on their own company and also the writing was a bit weak. I per..."

It really was! I mean I think because I've read other books about the science behind poor sleep or productivity I was able to fill in with some sort of validation to their claims but I find books like this to be helpful but could also be a bit dare I say dangerous in how they say "Hey! This is an awesome way to work, everyone should do this!" When in reality not every company can operate that way even if they could.

Yes I find that we could do with less hours but besides that it was nice to read about their company and their evolution but that's all I can really say about it. Their suggestions shouldn't be taken as a blanketed statement.

Hi, thanks for having this wonderful community. :-)

I liked the sentiment of the book. Especially the parts about disconnecting from work on weekends and during time-off.

I find the book lacks practical steps on how to implement some of these values and policies (although that might have not been a goal of the book. On the other hand, why not aim for that? If you identify so strongly with these values and want to share them, why not add additional advice on how to get there.)

To me, the book sometimes draws a false dichotomy: Either all the values of the authors are implemented and lived or you must be a heartless evil silicon valley start-up that exploits their employees. There was little room for nuance and a middle-ground. Or an acknowledgement that some companies might not have the resources to do that.