Jason Fried Quotes

Rather than demand whatever it takes, we ask, What will it take?

No Big Deal or the End of the World? Here’s something that should be obvious: People don’t like to have their grievances downplayed or dismissed. When that happens, even the smallest irritation can turn into an obsessive crusade. Imagine you’re staying at a hotel, and the air-conditioning isn’t working right. You call the front desk to mention it, and they say, oh yeah, they know about that, and someone is going to come fix that next week (after you’ve left). In the meantime, could you just open a window (down to that noisy, busy street)? Not a word of apology, no tone of contrition. Now what was a mild annoyance — that it’s 74F degrees when you like to sleep at 69F — is suddenly the end of the world! You swell with righteous fury, swear you’ll write a letter to management, and savage the hotel in your online review. Jean-Louis Gassée, who used to run Apple France, describes this situation as the choice between two tokens. When you deal with people who have trouble, you can either choose to take the token that says “It’s no big deal” or the token that says “It’s the end of the world.” Whichever token you pick, they’ll take the other. The hotel staff in the example above clearly took the “It’s no big deal” token and as a result forced you to take the “It’s the end of the world” token. But they could just as well have made the opposite choice. Imagine the staff answering something like this: “We’re so sorry. That’s clearly unacceptable! I can completely understand how it must be almost impossible to sleep when it’s so hot in your room. If I can’t fix this problem for you tonight, would you like me to refund your stay and help you find a different hotel room nearby? In any case, while we’re figuring out the solution, allow me to send up a bottle of ice water and some ice cream. We’re terribly sorry for this ordeal and we’ll do everything to make it right.” With an answer like that, you’re almost forced to pick the “It’s no big deal” token. Yeah, sure, some water and ic

The expectation of an immediate response is the ember that ignites so many fires at work.

If you build software, every error message is marketing

You’re better off focusing on getting your story into a trade publication or picked up by a niche blogger. With these outlets, the barrier is much lower. You can send an e-mail and get a response (and maybe even a post) the same day. There’s no editorial board or PR person involved. There’s no pipeline your message has to go through.

Knowing when to embrace Good Enough is what gives you the opportunity to be truly excellent when you need to be. We’re not suggesting you put shit work out there. You need to be able to be proud of it, even if it’s only “okay.” But attempting to be indiscriminately great at everything is a foolish waste of energy.

Culture is the byproduct of consistent behavior. If you encourage people to share, then sharing will be built into your culture. If you reward trust, then trust will be built in. If you treat customers right, then treating customers right becomes your culture.

So take a step toward calm, and relieve people from needing to broadcast their whereabouts and status. Everyone’s status should be implicit: I’m trying to do my job, please respect my time and attention.

Waiting it out is just fine. The sky won’t fall, the company won’t fold. It’ll just be a calmer, cooler, more comfortable place to work. For everyone.

If you’re not trusted to work remotely, why are you trusted to do anything at all? If you’re held in such low regard, why are you able to talk to customers, write copy for an ad, design the next product, assess insurance claims, or do tax returns?

Everyone should be encouraged to start his own business, not just some rare breed that self-identifies as entrepreneurs.

If we’re struggling with trust issues, it means we made a poor hiring decision. If a team member isn’t producing good results or can’t manage their own schedule and workload, we aren’t going to continue to work with that person. It’s as simple as that. We employ team members who are skilled professionals, capable of managing their own schedules and making a valuable contribution to the organization. We have no desire to be babysitters during the day.

Yet somehow it’s still frequently seen as heroic to sacrifice yourself, your health, and even your ability to do your job just to prove your loyalty to THE MISSION. Fuck the mission. No mission (in business, anyway) is worthy of such dire personal straits.

When everything constantly needs approval, you create a culture of nonthinkers.

The problem with abstractions (like reports and documents) is that they create illusions of agreement. A hundred people can read the same words, but in their heads, they’re imagining a hundred different things.