Rework [Hardcover]

 

 

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It would be easy to be dismissive of this book:

Its 270 pages are mostly white space and tangential illustrations;you get about 100 pages here. It doesn't go into any depth, simply skimming the surface of very many different notions. Nothing here is new, it is 80% common sense and you can read most of it for free on the Signal vs Noise blog.

And yet I highly recommend buying and reading it. It will only take you a few hours and will enrich your business life. Why? Because you are stupid.

Its okay though, I'm stupid too; we are all stupid. We constantly forget what we know; we backslide; we lose courage. We listen to overpaid overfed corporate execs and their ghost-writers and don't listen to what our sensible grandmothers tell us, and heck those grandmothers would never have let the economy go crunch.

So we need books that remind us what we already know to be true, and reiterate it a distinctive and friendly way so that remember it for a little while longer than normal.

This book does this so well that it sets the benchmark for slapping yourself in the face. Along the way it reminds you that you wasted several hundred dollars on wordy business books that told you what to do and how to do it, by authors who did a 180 a couple of years later.

Put simply this book reminds you to be free. Think freely, march to your own drummer, don't do stuff because it worked for someone else, and ignore any doomsayer who says 'that will never work'. Perceived wisdom is dangerous; real wisdom involves having an open mind with plenty of room for new thinking.

It is motivational more than informative, but that is what you need. Your business will be unique, every business is, so why copy someone else?

For the cost of lunch for two at Timmy's, this book will shake off all the nonsense you read in the newspapers and in business books, and set you free to build something really wonderful.

This book won't tell you anything new. This book is the best purchase you will make this year. Go figure.

Five stars.

If Joseph Schumpeter were to design a "creative destroyer," he would probably come up with a business thinker who bears a striking resemblance to Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. To me, they seem to be iconoclasts who are impatient to build rather than anarchists whose objective is chaos. They quickly indicate a healthy respect for the nature and extent of difficulty when challenging the status quo. But they are not deterred by that difficult, as their success with 37signals clearly indicates, and they probably have more confidence in their readers' (as yet) unfulfilled potentialities than most of those readers do.

Consider this passage in Chapter FIRST: "There's a new reality. Today anyone can be in business. Tools that used to be out of reach are now easily accessible. Technology that cost thousands is now just a few bucks or free. One person can do the job of two or three or, in some cases, an entire department. Stuff that was impossible just a few years ago is simple today." That said, Fried and Hansson realize that many people who read that passage will heartily endorse its spirit but decline to embrace and leverage the opportunities that the new reality offers. For them, the "real world" is defined by what James O'Toole so aptly characterizes in his book, Leading Change, as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom."

This so-called "real world" has advocates who, Fried and Hansson observe, "are filled with pessimism and despair. They expect fresh concepts to fail. They assume society isn't ready for or capable of change. Even worse, they want to drag others down into their tomb. If you're hopeful and ambitious, they'll try to convince you your ideas are impossible. They'll say you're wasting your time. Don't believe them. That world may be real for them, but it doesn't mean you have to live in it." By now you have at least a sense of the thrust and flavor of Fried and Hansson's perspectives on how (literally) anyone can rework what she or he does...and rework how she or he does it...to achieve and then sustain success in all dimensions and domains of one's life. Indeed, one of the most important insights shared in the book is that the most valuable business lessons are also the most valuable life lessons. For example, here are ten of several dozen that Fried and Hansson discuss:

Learning from mistakes is overrated.
Planning is guessing.
Scratch your own itch.
Not enough of [fill in the blank] is a cop-out.
Embrace constraints.
Be a curator, not a custodian.
Reasons to quit.

Note: The material in this chapter is wholly consistent with the gambler's adage, "Know when to hold `em, know when to fold `em" as well as with Seth Godin's observations in The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick).

Long lists don't get done.
Emulate great chefs.
ASAP is poison.

Granted, the tone of Fried and Hansson's narrative is sometimes confrontation, in-your-face, but I think that is necessary because their separate but related purposes are to challenge their reader to "rework" or, in some instances, "blow up" assumptions and premises about business success that are no longer true (or never were), and, to encourage their reader adopt a new mindset, then formulate and execute new strategies and tactics that will achieve sustainable business success.

If you need some fresh perspectives on how to get more done with less, including less stress, and with more joy, look no further. And if you share my high regard for this book, I highly recommend Godin's Linchpin, Guy Kawasaki's Reality Check, Scott McLeod's Ignore Everybody, and Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense co-authored by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton.

Simple and effective. The following is so true:

"Ignore this book at your own peril." - Seth Godin

Best tool to avoid having your business model fail. I follow its advices religiously now.

Thanks 37signals!

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4.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing Book in a Tired Category
Rework is a book about how to rethink business'how to rethink your job, how to rethink your colleagues, how to rethink success. Read more

Published 9 months ago by Michael A. Robson

3.0 out of 5 stars Small business
A small business in information technology who reflects on his model. A book that can be helpful to young entrepreneurs. Read more

Published 9 months ago by Johanne B

4.0 out of 5 stars D Elver
This book was an interesting read.
Although I found some of the situations not applicable to all business, it did provide a unique prospective on dealing with some day to day... Read more

Published 10 months ago by D Elver

5.0 out of 5 stars This book earned my respect...
Thinking I could chip away reading this book, I brought this master piece into the bathroom with me and sat down on the porcelain, after reading 2 pages I immediately closed this... Read more

Published 12 months ago by notbathroomreading

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly Insightful
This book, much like the first one from the 37Signals team, is an absolute masterpiece. It's so insightful to anyone running, starting, or thinking of starting a business. Read more

Published 12 months ago by Wayne Helpard

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing
This book is an easy read full of brief concepts which are refreshing. You don't have to follow all of them, but it's good at breaking your routine and trying something new. Read more

Published 12 months ago by akennberg

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit disappointed
I was a bit disappointed. I had heard that they had a thought-provoking approach to business management. Nothing thought-provoking here. Much common sense is all. Read more

Published 13 months ago by NewUser

4.0 out of 5 stars Reworking works!
Good book and easy read. Easy to apply theory's to various working fields. To many images, could have been a bit longer.

Published 14 months ago by pat514

2.0 out of 5 stars Ripoff
Half of the 200 pages in this book are pictures or blank. Very little content. What a disappointment. It is just random rantings of these authors.

Published 19 months ago by Marc

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessons from 37 Signals
These guys are awesome. They put together an easy read that says what it needs to say the best way it can. Less is more. Read more

Published 19 months ago by torque

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