№ VI
The conditions for good work
What we've learned about when humans actually produce great things — and what we protect them from.
Most software is built in conditions that would embarrass anyone who’d ever tried to make something well. Pings every six minutes. Status meetings about the status meetings. Open offices, open Slacks, open calendars, open season.
People do their best work when they’re left alone, trusted to deliver, and respected enough to be told when something isn’t working. None of those three are particularly difficult to provide. It is striking how many places provide none of them.
Our working defaults
Placeholder — describe: no-meeting blocks, written-first comms, slow responses by default, the deliberate absence of “always-on” expectations.