Jackie Danicki posted the following quote here:

The key question in organizations is not the typical one — how do you motivate people or engage people? It’s how do you keep management from destroying motivation?
– David Sirota

Part of the managers’ credo should be “First, do no harm.” Many managers feel that they need to assert their authority right away by instituting new policies and making big changes as soon as they are assigned to the team. While there are rare occasions where this is called for, it usually isn’t. It is far better to spend a bit of time getting to know the team, as well as how and why they do things today. Even when radical change is called for, you are better positioned to implement radical change when the team feels that you understand them. Otherwise, you are setting yourself up for morale and motivation busting fight with the team. This is especially true with bright creative types, such as engineers.