Book: Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.

It’s a good book but I was expecting more from it. I think it happened because I had the chance to attend a workshop with Patty and it was very good. My feeling is that the book was not bringing that much news for me.

I part I like the most about this book is how Netflix “considers their employees as adults”. Yes, I know it seems silly here, but c’mon so many companies don’t do that. Companies and managers like to babysit their employees to a point that it looks ridiculous sometimes. One of the best advice here is to invest in your hiring process, hire people you trust, and let them do the work you need.

Some advice is very hard to apply outside of Netflix (IMO) but it’s still cool to know that it works for them.

Here are my raw notes about the book:

  • People have power, don’t take it away from them. The “empowerment” only exists because we take power from the employees
  • The manager’s job is to create great teams that do fantastic work on time.
  • Engineers have senseless bureaucracy but love discipline
  • Treat people like adults — 💭 I don’t know why this is so hard for people. They want to hire adults but treat them as children…
  • The best you can do for employees is to hire high performers to work with them
  • Excellent colleagues, clear purpose, and highly understood deliverables. That’s the powerful combination
  • We decided we are going to start treating people like adults and they loved it
  • The greatest achievements are achieved by a team that has enough freedom to apply creativity to solve problems
  • The biggest motivator is to have great people to work with you
  • It would be best if you operated with the leanest possible set of rules, approvals, and procedures
  • Eliminate as much as possible from processes and approvals; if you need them, you can always get them back
  • It’s crucial that you people know how the business runs so they can make better decisions on their daily job
  • Why should investors know more about your company then people working on it?
  • If you don’t provide useful information to your employees, they will find it somewhere else, and it’s usually misguided information
  • If you’re not honest with your employees about their performance and mistakes, you’re doing them a disservice and being a lousy manager
  • If you want something from your employees, the standards must be set from the top-down, lead by example #Leadership
  • Preparing people for the changes to come, create a sense of honesty inside the company
  • Your people can handle the truth — 💭 They are adults after all.
  • Leaders should practice giving critical feedback, so it’s cohesive and constructive
  • Fact-based arguments are not always true
  • Be aware of data masquerading the fact
  • We are limited by the team we have, not the team we should have. The people you have may not be the people you need for the future. Hire more experienced people for what you need.
  • Build the ideal team to get where you want instead of trying to adapt your team to what you want. Sometimes, a startup team may not be the best for a big company – I’m not sure how much I would apply this…
  • The company is like a sports team, not a family. The team choice should be only based on performance for the job, and the team leader should always be looking for the perfect person for the job; it may be someone from inside or not. It’s ok to let people go if they are not top performers
  • If you don’t have enough expertise inside to do great things in a particular area, don’t hesitate to look for it outside. If it’s an area where you’re driving innovation, you should already have the talent inside
  • Sometimes promoting is not the right solution
  • People should take charge of their growth (not offshore this to the company) to rise within the company or look for a better opportunity elsewhere #Career
  • Sometimes growing a company means that your team doesn’t suit the company anymore and you need different kinds of people. It doesn’t happen all the time (they may evolve to the team you need), but you have to let them go if it happens
  • Sometimes an employee may not be happy with the path the company is taking, but it doesn’t mean that the path is wrong. Sometimes the employee is not ready/happy to work in a big company, and the company is naturally growing and wants to grow, so it’s time for the employee to find another job
  • Learn to let go of people who have skills the company no longer needs, even if they are very talented employees and did great things in the past. Build the team of the future
  • True happiness at work doesn’t come from perks; it comes from solving interesting problems with interesting people
  • “You are going to pay me much money for me to do what I love” – it reminds me as a teenager. I would work for free just to have access to a working system
  • People who like music (play instruments) were usually good matches for the Netflix data team
  • Candidates are evaluating you as much as you are evaluating them — 💭 so true. Work is a relationship.
  • Consider paying top market salary to your employees so you can retain the best talents of the market. If you can’t do it for everyone, do it for the key areas of your business
  • Be transparent about salaries; it doesn’t have to be a top-secret topic. If you’re afraid that it may cause problems, you’re probably not able to justify the salaries you already have
  • Sometimes people are not a good match for the business. It’s not about failure or anything like that. This person may be the most talented in their field, but it may not matter if you do not require this field anymore
  • Be transparent about how you can recommend employees when they are leaving the company. Sometimes you fire someone because they don’t have good leadership skills but they may still be a good engineer, and you can recommend him/her for that