If you ask a developer what his ideal work environment is most will give you some variation of “fast, fun and I can get work done.” Over the years the most common complaint I've heard from dev teams is that so many roadblocks are placed in the way of achievement that individuals lose their will to work hard. They become complacent and start to see the job as “just a paycheck” instead of a career. When your employees lose their desire to drive the company goals you have a problem.

One of the benefits to being a consultant is that I've worked for a large number of companies over the past 10 years, and I've seen a variety of corporate structures and cultures – some good and some not so good. There are a few key points that those with the most explosive growth have in common and I've tried to capture those points here. Not coincidentally working for these companies has also been the most rewarding.

Have a Vision and Drive it to the Lower Levels

What does your company really want to accomplish? “Create great software” is a little vague since all development companies want that. Spend some time to think of where your company fits into the marketplace and write it down. Refine it. Post it. Believe it. Then drive it, but do so with excitement and energy.

You have to believe that what your company is doing is going to better the way others do business, think, feel or live. You have to create a crusade within your company so that your employees will be as excited about your stated goal as you are. This is going to require you to sell the vision to your own company first – and I mean the whole company. As the CEO you need to sell this to your executive staff and they need to believe it too. But you can't stop there. You need to sell this to the level of management below the executive staff also. And again you can't rely on them to continue the work, though by this point they should be, but you need to continue to sell the vision down to the farthest rung of the organizational chart.

Use every means at your disposal to energize the troops. Company-wide meetings, telecasts, webcasts or whatever other method will allow you to reach the greatest number of employees should be employed. I focus on this so strongly because this will form the core of your company and is vital to increasing efficiency. Once employees catch the vision of what you are trying to accomplish they will tailor their daily work to meet those goals and there will be fewer useless meetings, fewer useless projects, fewer distractions and fewer cases of disgruntled workers.

Clarify the Work and Stress the Importance

One of the greatest causes of disillusionment and discouragement is when employees are made to feel that their work has no effect on the bottom line. It's very frustrating to go to work every day only to spend all your time wondering how you made a difference and wondering when the axe is going to fall on your position. It's demoralizing.

To counter this make it a priority to cut extraneous projects that don't add to the company goal and put your people on projects that will advance the agenda. If they are truly excited about the corporate direction they will be happy to switch to a project that will make a measurable difference in how close the company gets to reaching that goal.

Let's say your working on a project that is moving along at a great clip. How do you feel when you hit what appears to be a sudden series of obstacles? Isn't it frustrating? How many times are those obstacles caused by people in your own company? If you can get everyone to drive to the same goal those obstacles will melt away. Employees will start to see how their piece fits into the greater scheme and how they can contribute to the successful completion of the goal.

Stop Creating Extraneous Layers of Management

As growth occurs within a company the load on an individual manager may become too great as the number of his direct reports increases. In order to decrease that load he will soon create leadership positions underneath him. This will magnify and perpetuate throughout the company as it grows and is normal and natural – to a point.

Many employees are looking to climb the career ladder, and most management is only too happy to foster the growth of their employees. The problem this causes is that management positions are often created where they aren't truly necessary. Be aware of this and require valid justification for the creation of a new management position. This is a fine line to walk as you don't want to make the requirements so strict that you hinder good growth.

Yet another issue is the creation of project managers as opposed to team managers. I have yet to see efficiency come out of a system where the person who runs the project has no authority over the employees doing the work. This just creates a culture of frustration as everyone vies for his own ideas and no one is able to make the final decision. Since it's been established that task switching is generally not a good idea, you're most likely going to have your developers working on only a single project at a time, so instead of creating a project manager to direct the activity give the job to the development manager – or his manager, but keep it in the chain of command.

Flatten the Structure

As I walk through the cubicle farm of the world's greatest chipmaker I see about 1 in every 4 or 5 cubes is empty. That's a stark contrast to the Intel I knew 9 years ago when they were on a massive hiring spree. If you read the technology news you have probably read about the layoffs at many companies in the high-tech sector. Although I'm sure there are many ex-employees who would disagree with me, I believe these empty cubes are a sign that the company is doing something right.

In order for a company to stay agile it needs to listen to it's customers and perhaps just as important it needs to listen to it's employees. That means that the CEO needs to be directly involved in the pulse of the company, which becomes increasingly difficult to accomplish as the company grows. Within a number of years a company can grow so bloated that its payroll expenses outstrip its income.

It's a common joke that managers don't do any real work. While the reality is quite different there is a grain of truth in that belief when the chain of command grows so long as to be unwieldy. When too many people are making decisions things just naturally slow down.

Flatten the management structure. Take a look at your org chart for your company. How many levels away from the CEO are you? Five or less? Good. Eight? Ok. Ten? Hmmm. You may have a problem there. I worked at a company for a while where twelve steps from the CEO was fairly commonplace, and we've already seen how inefficient that can be.

I've found that eight levels of management are about all a company can handle without running into significant slow downs in the decision-making process. In order to move quickly you need to be able to direct your company through as few layers as possible. While you may not be able to match the speed of a small company you can still strive to think and act/react like one.

Foster Innovation

When I worked at Cardinal Health many years ago we had a development manager who came up with some fairly crazy ideas at the time. Of course that's what his management thought. Lucky for him, and the company, the management two layers up saw the merit of his ideas and supported his innovative tendencies. One idea alone added over $50 million to the bottom line and that figure is still growing annually.

One of the most famous stories of company innovation is that of Arthur Fry at 3M in regards to the Post-It note. Although the adhesive was invented by another 3M employee, Spencer Silver, it wasn't until many years later that Fry put it to use as a way to retain notes without damaging the surface of the page when they were repositioned.

Innovation can come from anywhere in the company and if you want to expand by leaps and bounds one of the easiest ways to do it is to promote a culture that fosters this innovation and rewards employees for it. Certainly not every idea produces results, but I think you may be surprised at how many of them can.

Remove The Obstacles

It's all about getting work done. I believe that the majority of employees, if shown a proper direction, will want to work hard to achieve a goal. When Sabeer Bhatia founded Hotmail many employees didn't even receive a paycheck – only a piece of the company in the hopes that it would go somewhere. Since free web email hadn't been done before, certainly on such a massive scale, I don't believe those employees knew whether or not they would ever get paid. And yet they joined for a cause. They joined because everyone who worked there was pumped up with the vision of what they could accomplish and they worked hard to make it happen. In just 18 months the company went from product launch to being acquired by Microsoft for a reported $400 million.

If you can create an environment that is conducive to getting the work done you'll find that you reach your company goals that much faster. Flatten the management structure so that decisions are made quickly. Avoid the frustration that hits when the pace is too slow. Do everything you can to promote fast thinking and creative thinking and you'll find that your employees will look forward to Mondays. Oh – and don't be surprised at just how fast your profits soar as well.