Cover of Rework

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Rework is a relatively short book which directs the reader to think differently about operating a small business. Most all of the advice in the book is contradictory to what most people are taught or believe to be normal in the business world. Yet the things stated in the book do make sense if you think about them. Some of the book is inspirational, such as ignore the real world, follow your inspiration or make a dent in the universe. Other parts of the book fly in the face of what you believe l ike, fire workaholics, dont be a hero, pass on great people, andgrowing your business is

bad. Rework seems to try and cover every topic they could think of that bothered them about advice they heard concerning starting a business. Some of the advice may seem suited better to some industries than others, but you wont know without giving it a shot. The point Rework seems to be trying to make is be satisfied with being a small company. Enjoy what you do and let it show in the quality of the product you sell. Make your own stuff and keep people with you who are as enthusiastic as you are about your products. Get rid of all the stuff you dont like about work and keep everything focused on your core products. If your products make by-products, sell them too. They say things like, dont plan since its just a guess so its waste of time and let your customers outgrow you. If you would tell either one of those to your boss, you probably would start worrying about your job or you would end up in the unemployment line. They also state to not write down your customers complaints, just forget about them. Rework takes down commonly believed practices in the areas of measuring progress, productivity, competitors, company culture, hiring, promotion, evolution and more. The book should take the average person about three to four hours to read so its not a huge investment in time. I believe everyone will find something useful in this book.

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1. 2. Learning from mistakes is overrated. Learn from successes. Do something you feel is making a difference. You will never be able to

fully commit yourself if you dont. 3. Reduce mass at work. Reduce meetings, office politics, inventory ,

expenses. 4. If you have a choice between half a product and a half -assed product,

choose half a product. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Meetings are toxic. Dont copy the competition. Create something and have them copy you. Embrace being a small company. Hire people who can manage themselves. When things go bad, take ownership and control of the situation.

10.

Get rid of workaholics and all night heroes. Send people home at 5.

Image by dhh via CrunchBase

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INTRODUCTION Rework is a short book that centers on keeping things at work simple. It is comprised of only 279 pages and has numerous chapters and subchapters, most subchapters are not even a full two pages, unless you count graphics. Although the book is short, it definitely conveys the message of the author that the way the majority of small business owners think is the wrong way. Rework points these companies in a new direction many have not considered traveling.

The book begins with an introduction that briefly confirms the writers of the book as successful business owners. It is also an advertisement for the software they create at their company 37signals . It then jumps into another chapter titled First that has only one subchapter titled The new reality. These should have honestly still been grouped together with the introduction. The new reality clearly states that the days of huge sacrifice to start your own company or to get going with a great idea you had are over. Thanks to recent advances in technology, items which used to costs thousands now cost tens of dollars. You only need to put a few hours a week minimum, either after work or on the w eekends to get your company operational. TAKEDOWNS Through the subsequent subchapters, Rework attempts to abolish commonly accepted business norms. In the first of this chapters subchapters, Ignore the real world, they say just that. Just because something doesnt seem to be applicable or even possible is no reason to not try it. Ignore those who refuse to never take the first step of the journey for fear it would be impossible. They go onto stating that people who say make mistakes early and often t o learn from them are not very smart. The better path is not making the mistakes at all. Instead of analyzing what you did wrong, analyze what you did right and build on it. The next commonly accepted item to be destroyed is planning. To the authors of Rework, planning is guessing, which is the subtitle of that chapter. They believe that planning further than a week out is pointless unless you have the ability to predict the future. is pointless. A big point they push is growing the size of your company is overrated. The competition to see who can be the biggest in your industry is normally not beneficial. The correct approach is trying to keep your compa ny as small as possible. They promote trying to do what you can do without expanding. They use Harvard as an example. Harvard isnt trying to grow their college to thousands of professors and hundreds of thousands of students. They are a relatively small college that is excellent at what they do. One key point in this subchapter is that small can sometimes be thedestination. Being small keeps expenses down and keeps the company nimble so they can adapt to change quickly. In their next subchapter titled, Workaholism, may be my favorite view they express. They say workaholics are bad, not only for themselves personally but for the company as well. They say it is better to just fire the workaholics. Their constant competition for who can stay th e longest and hold their total hours worked in either a day or week as a trophy above others just isnt healthy. These people usually burn out and quit. Their final message in this chapter is they want to do away with the The main point of this is sticking to a plan that may have very few t hings in line with reality

word entrepreneurs. Aside from being a difficult word to spell, it makes people think of them as something set apart and hard to become. They suggest using the term starters to replace the word entrepreneurs. Anyone who has a passion for something, does it and gets paid is a starter. GO This is all about getting your business going. The first thing they recommend is doing something you feel has meaning. It doesnt have to be something huge, just something you feel is worth your time and you enjoy. Usually companies feel they need to buy everything to get started, but their suggestion is to make some of the stuff you need. Youll make it the best way to suit you and maybe someone else will like it. Now you have what you were originally making and you have another product to sell with no additional costs since you invested in it originally for your company to begin with. The next bit of advice should be for 99% of all the people out there who always have the great idea but never act upon it, Start Making Something. are tons of great ideas out there but great ideas are not really worth anything. There If you

can manifest that great idea into something, the idea now has value and you have something to sell. They go on to counter the next argument of having no time. Dont wait for the best time, just start working on it. Just work on the project a few hours a week and eventually you will have it up and running. They also encourage companies to have a viewpoint they believe in and a backbone. They do warn that by believing in somet hing publicly, you will attract fans and at the same time you will turn some people off from using you. They use the example of keeping their software simple. A lot of people want them to change their software to add a number of features, but they are de termined to not change their viewpoint. Some people will not use them while others love it about them and remain loyal. Among other values they push is that when you are at the outset of starting your business, do not go into the company devising an exit strategy. They compare it to getting married while talking to a divorce lawyer. Start a company with values that you enjoy and you will continue to enjoy as you progress the company. goals should not include money making you happy. Less mass is a good thing. Reduction in long term contracts, inventory, meetings and office politics should be sought as often as possible. They point out mission statements are usually convoluted and a load of junk. They want companies to stand for what the statement says, not just say they stand for it. Rework strongly urges companies to not accept outside funding. It gives someone else input and control in your company who does not understand it. Before you know it they are requiring you to include countless t hings you dont want to do they lead to Future

greater expenses that lead to meetings where you are grilled on why your company isnt as profitable as it was when they invested. PROGRESS This starts with embracing restrictions and trying to do what you can with l imited resources. If you have to build half a product, then do it and start selling half the product. If you are programming a flight simulator, make sure it has a plane that can fly before you worry about things like the clouds and collision detection. details; just get the majority of it done. PRODUCTIVITY They demonstrate how meetings are toxic. The more meetings you have, the more time you waste for more people. Get as much done without having a meeting as possible. They also had a great i dea. Instead of casual Friday, have a no interruption Thursday, or a no interruption two hour block each day. This will lead to more production that most people would imagine. They point out that when setting milestones for completion, set small ones. Breaking down a yearlong project into week or even day goals will keep the project on pace much better. The thing on productivity is they say to not try and get it perfect. If good enough is fine, leave it at good enough. Also, dont be a hero. You thinking you are championing a project and working eighty hours a week for two months to finish it isnt helping anyone. Delegate tasks and readjust your deadline. Go home and get some sleep. Working late and being sleep deprived will just lead to costly m istakes you will spend more time fixing. COMPETITORS It tells us to not copy our competitors. You cant be a better company than the company youre trying to outdo. Its a game you cannot win so do not even try. Even one upping themselves, dont even pay attention to your competition. They also promote making yourself part of the product so that way it cannot be copied. One piece of advice they give is to pick a fight. Find someone or something that you dont like and make that opinion open. You will have others who do not like that same thing rally to your side. Youve just created fans for your company. Just when you thought their ideas couldnt get anymore contrary to what you know, they say to under-do your competition. Dont add all the crazy bells and whistles your competitors are adding. Make your product do what it is intended to do and make sure it does that well. Keep it simple and not convoluted with additional stuff most people dont know how to use. Ignore

EVOLUTION It tells us to say no first. It is always less awkward to say no and to think about it than to tell someone you can do something only to come back and say no later. They also say to let your customers get bigger than you. If you grow with certain large clients, you will become too specialized. If that client leaves you, you are stuck with a specialized product no one else wants. They make a point to let you know to not confuse enthusiasm with priority. Just because you have a great new idea and you a re ready to move on it now, let the idea simmer for a bit. If you are still feeling that way after a week, get to it. Otherwise, you just saved yourself a lot of time and headache. They say to make sure your product is the type of product that people do not have buyers remorse over. The type of product that when they get home, they dont feel regret about owning. One idea that I found funny, but it seems true is to not right down your customers complaints. Forget them even. If there is truly a problem, you will begin to hear it so much that it will be impossible to ignore. PROMOTION Being unknown is great. You can mess up and change things and no one notices. If you are a large company and you make a small mistake, it affects everything. Embrace being obscure. Use tools at your disposal to build an audience. Have a weekly blog, use social networking, do something that people find interesting. As you build up more of a following, you will have an audience who wants to know more about you and wil l be very interested in your company. One of the most important things you can do is to provide free education about your industry. Give it away. The more you teach, the more people will associate you with being the go to company for their problems. Let people tour your business. Dont be afraid to show your flaws and problems. People will appreciate that you are human too. They also say to be like a drug dealer. Give the first bit for free. If you have a great product, they will have to have more. HIRING Rework states to do it yourself before you hire someone to do it. This way you will know what to expect from someone and you can find out if you can reduce the workload before you hire. Also, only hire when you absolutely have too. This will get you to try to find more optimal ways of completing the task. Rework advises against hiring great people whom you do not have a complete spot for just yet. It makes them idle and bored and wastes your money and their time. They say when hiring, ignore resumes and formal education. Focus on accomplishments and writing ability. Make sure they can manage themselves. Also, do not hire anyone who

simply manages. Everyone works. When hiring someone new, test drive them through an evaluation period before formally hiring them permanently. DAMAGE CONTROL Take ownership of a bad situation. The highest ranking person should be the one talking to the press about the bad problem. Make sure they know every effort is being made, with examples, to rectify the pro blem. Dont wait for the problem to hit the media if it will inevitable hit. Also, dont sound like a robot when apologizing. Apologize like you are trying to get out of a bad spot with an upset spouse or family member. Put everyone on the front lines so they can hear directly about what they did wrong and let everyone know to take a deep breath since usually the worst part is in the beginning of a crisis. CULTURE This lets us know that we do not create culture. Culture is developed on its own. New companies do not have one regardless of how much they try. Dont force it; just let it make its own way. Some people believe that it shows good character to stick with a decision youve made to the end regardless of what happens. Not the case in Rework. All decisions are temporary. If you find that the choice you made isnt good anymore, change your mind. There is a policy where you skip seeking rock star employees and instead make a rock star environment. Reduce excessive policies and rules and let yo ur employees develop. On that note, do not treat your employees like they are children. If you have to treat them like children, they are probably not worth having as employees. Dont create rules and policies if something bad happens once. Just talk to the person and ask them not to do it. Too many rules just leads to a huge rule book that no one reads. They also include that asking for things ASAP is a terrible thing to do. Everything is ASAP and there is no priority put on anything. Dont ask for something ASAP unless it really is needed. If you need to know something that bad, do it yourself or get up and go ask the person. Additionally, when talking to others, talk like yourself. Dont get caught up in a lot of business lingo trying to perpet uate a more business like persona. Your coworkers will appreciate it more if you speak to them like a human. CONCLUSION Ideas are forever, inspiration has a shelf life. If you have a goal, get out there and do it before it becomes that thing I wish I wo uld have done.