Everybody likes to win. I don't care if you work for a small plumbing company or the most successful company in the world. There's a special flavor to winning.
Every adviser told me to study the company, learn the business for the first 90 days and don't make any decisions. I couldn't resist seeing broken things and immediately taking action.
Where you need to make fast decisions, people have to work in an open space where I can just walk to somebody's cube, so we don't need to schedule meetings for absolutely everything.
If you have nothing to hide, if you're actually working for eight hours, or 10 or 12 hours, however long people decide to work, it's OK to have windows around conference rooms, it's OK to have cubicles. Because you're actually working. If you're not working, doing social media and spending half the day for personal stuff, then an environment like this will actually bother you.
You cannot foster a collaborative environment when people's offices are completely locked, where you cannot even see the assistant because the offices are so big.
