Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Meetings are toxic" was in their last book. It's a hyperbolic title, but the content is more subtle. http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch07_Meetings_Are_Toxic.php "Fire workaholics" was a blog post. http://37signals.com/svn/posts/902-fire-the-workaholics The review was defensive, because 37signals prove that many typical management techniques are not necessary for success. This is a status risk for the review author,…
Sorry, but I just absolutely detest this sort of writing, where you make outlandish claims, then fallback to a ridiculously obvious position. It's a bait+switch, and it's used way too often. You don't get any real insight, you just read what you already know. Meetings Are Toxic Don't have meetings For those times when you absolutely must have a meeting (this should be a rare event), stick to these simple rules: And t…
The thing is that in many places it's not obvious. There are a lot of people who spent many years in companies where this wasn't a common practice and they just don't know any better. It's not that these people aren't smart, they've just never seen anything different. Having a 1 hour meeting with a dozen people to solve the most simple problems is just "how things are done".
Let me make a quick analogy.
To a lot of people here, the idea that XP, SCRUM, and other agile development methodologies are a much better way of developing software is "obvious". To many, many people in larger companies it's definitely not obvious. They have decades of experience doing things using waterfall, and most of them have never worked at a place that did anything else. It's just "how things are done".
If you think all of these things are obvious, then this book is likely not for you. For lots of people, this book contains ideas that are very different from what they're accustomed to. That's who will get the most out of this book (or other books of its kind).