Trust, vision, and congruent behavior

David Heinemeier Hansson on the 37signals blog:

A star environment is based on trust, vision, and congruent behavior. Make people proud to work where they work by involving them in projects that matter and ignite a fire of urgency about your purpose. Find out who you are as a company and be the very best you. Give people a strategic plan that’s coherent and believable and then leave the bulk of the tactical implementation to their ingenuity.

Find out who you are as a company and be the very best you. That's the best advice you can get. If you don't know who you are, nothing else matters. The latest example is Groupon, but there are an endless supply of examples. And for good reason: Knowing who you are is hard work.