Ouch. This kind of thing generally works where there is underlying sense of duty, or impetus to win. The WW2 film 'Twelve O'Clock High' where an Air Force Gen

Ouch. This kind of thing generally works where there is underlying sense of duty, or impetus to win. The WW2 film 'Twelve O'Clock High' where an Air Force General comes in an sorts out a demoralized and broken unit is used as training in various militaries to depict this kind of leadership on a higher level. But 'reprimands' etc. tend only to work when there's a higher calling. Like winning a war. For salaried teams - even if the team is being a little dysfunctional ... just might lead to mutiny, exodus. From what you described I'm very surprised that the team didn't fall apart, or that the product was shipped. A few things: 1) If the team was that utterly toxic, and people were openly backstabbing others ... this is not going to be fixed really. Those people are toxic they need to go. 2) Changing culture 'in place' is really hard with regular people. You can't just come in and play hardball with carrots and sticks. An alternative would be basically re-org the whole thing. Even having a different physical presence, maybe different team structure ... even if it's kind of a facade - a new work dynamic might set up people towards thinking of a 'clean start'. So instead of 'penalizing' people for coming in late etc. you have a new team dynamic in a new operating environment where 'everyone agrees' to more specific hours for the betterment of the team. A good idea would be to 'listen' to some of the problems, even if there's no action on it, just the act of listening will help. I think you're lucky ... your 'no nonsense' manager is very lucky and this approach I think can only really work when there is a specific kind of dysfunction. I think if you have younger developers, all of whom lack self discipline but are otherwise good team members, maybe who need just a little bit of a kick in the pants. But I'm glad you had a good experience.