It’s been mentioned on Hacker News a few times, but the book “Turn The Ship Around” is essentially about this very question. It’s about a different kind of org

It’s been mentioned on Hacker News a few times, but the book “Turn The Ship Around” is essentially about this very question. It’s about a different kind of organisation (a military submarine), but I differently recognised a lot of the same dysfunctions and failed attempts at fixing things that I’ve seen whilst working in numerous tech companies. The answer seems to be that, yes, you really can turn a dysfunctional team into a high performing one (literally worst to best in the case of the book), and in much less time than you’d have thought (most of the changes happen within 45 days of the author taking command). My main takeaway from the book has not been new ideas about what good looks or feels like, but tools about how to fix it if it’s broken. Highly recommended.