Patty McCord

When it comes to recruiting, motivating, and creating great teams, Patty McCord says most companies have it all wrong. McCord helped create the unique and high-performing culture at Netflix, where she was chief talent officer. In her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, she shares what she learned there and elsewhere in Silicon Valley. McCord advocates practicing radical honesty in the workplace, saying good-bye to employees who don't fit the company's emerging needs, and motivating with challenging work, not promises, perks, and bonus plans. McCord argues that the old standbys of corporate HR--annual performance reviews, retention plans, employee empowerment and engagement programs--often end up being a colossal waste of time and resources. Her road-tested advice, offered with humor and irreverence, provides readers a different path for creating a culture of high performance and profitability. Powerfulwill change how you think about work and the way a business should be run.

Teams, Leaders and the Culture of Freedom and Responsibility

Powerful

Niels Andersen

Short and to the point. Thought provoking and compelling take on how to build strong teams and how to think about keeping it letting people go.

When it comes to recruiting, motivating, and creating great teams, Patty McCord says most companies have it all wrong. McCord helped create the unique and high-performing culture at Netflix, where she was chief talent officer. In her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, she shares what she learned there and elsewhere in Silicon Valley. McCord advocates practicing radical honesty in the workplace, saying good-bye to employees who don't fit the company's emerging needs, and motivating with challenging work, not promises, perks, and bonus plans. McCord argues that the old standbys of corporate HR--annual performance reviews, retention plans, employee empowerment and engagement programs--often end up being a colossal waste of time and resources. Her road-tested advice, offered with humor and irreverence, provides readers a different path for creating a culture of high performance and profitability. Powerful will change how you think about work and the way a business should be run.

Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility

Keven Wang

This book should be read in junction with Reed Hasting ‘s “No Rules Rule”. This book has heavy emphasis on hiring, staffing and HR.

Erwin Lemuel Oliva

I have been curious about the Netflix culture. Reading Patty's stories and her 14-year experience tells me that much of what she is saying are very practical and are based on common sense. Her algorithm on how to decide whether to hire or fire a person is useful, but it is not as mind-blowing as I would have thought. It is, however, a question of doing it, and if you are brave, doing it now. This book is a good read for people managers.

Vera Sokolyanskaya

It's the first time you read about something that really hits you. After Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead every book about corporate culture and how to manage human resources has a secondary feel to it. I still liked it but it didn't blow my mind. What I really liked is its brutal honesty - I believe some ideas that are in this book are not widely communicated even though evidence shows that management follows them more often than they admit. This is my observation based on my many conversations with human resources managers at different levels. 

Ideas I really liked in the book:
- "Successful sports teams are the best model for managers; they are constantly scouting for new talent and culling their current roster. You’re building a team, not raising a family".  I know this contradicts how many companies talk about their culture but in the end, it's how they see it, otherwise, we would all have tenure with our companies.

- "Employees at all levels want and need to understand not only the particular work they are assigned and their team’s mission, but also the larger story of the way the business works, the challenges the company faces, and the competitive landscape." I agree that knowing the business and the company's business model is crucial for every employee. It gives people sense of purpose and it also lets them see the rationale behind decisions being made.

- "...they don’t owe their people anything more than ensuring that the company is making a great product that serves the customer well and on time. They don’t owe people the chance to take on a role they’re not prepared for and don’t have the talents for. They don’t owe them a different job created to reward them for their service." Promoting internal talent vs bringing someone external - you have to find the right balance between the two but you have to look at everything at stake before you make that call.

Elizabeth Garza

This was a really great book that has some fascinating ideas about how create a work environment that frees up the employees but also puts responsibility on them. In other words, treats them like the adults they are. 

McCord suggests that people be honest with each other and, in a sense, confrontational. But she certainly is not encouraging aggressive confrontation. What she really means is very open communication from the top-down and vice versa. She suggests that managers take away a lot of the bureaucratic nonsense that hinders and constrains businesses and implement a work culture that trusts their employees and treats them like adults instead of wayward children (She brings up the example of Netflix getting rid of vacation time and allowing them to take off as needed. She said that people were actually quite responsible and didn't abuse the privilege.) 

And with this idea in mind she talks about pay (being willing to pay 100% market value for people who are coming in with the expertise necessary for the project at hand), the unnecessary obsession with retention percentages (if an employee is no longer proving to be asset to the team have a conversation with them that their talents and skills would be better suited at a different company and actively help them find a place to work where they can grow), and dispelling the idea that a company is a family because it's not - its a team. 

Anyways I highly recommend this book to anybody interested in hearing a different perspective on how a highly changing workplace/company can work.

Andreas Holmer

Low on detail but high on principle, with lots and lots of examples. Inspirational. I’ll reread this book from time to time whenever I need a jolt.

Cristian Garcia

Arihant Verma

Kris Lantheaume

Sergei Khudovekov

Cheah Chu Yeow

Ana Ferreira

Manik

Emily Haniotis

Nguyen Huu Thong

Rachel Kwon

Antoine Pirard

Claire Knight

Deniz Kahraman

Named by The Washington Post as one of the 11 Leadership Books to Read in 2018 When it comes to recruiting, motivating, and creating great teams, Patty McCord says most companies have it all wrong. McCord helped create the unique and high-performing culture at Netflix, where she was chief talent officer. In her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, she shares what she learned there and elsewhere in Silicon Valley. McCord advocates practicing radical honesty in the workplace, saying good-bye to employees who don’t fit the company’s emerging needs, and motivating with challenging work, not promises, perks, and bonus plans. McCord argues that the old standbys of corporate HR—annual performance reviews, retention plans, employee empowerment and engagement programs—often end up being a colossal waste of time and resources. Her road-tested advice, offered with humor and irreverence, provides readers a different path for creating a culture of high performance and profitability. Powerful will change how you think about work and the way a business should be run.

Powerful Teams, Leaders and the Culture of Freedom and Responsibility

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