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.
Patty 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. Her new book Powerful will change how you think about work and the way a business should be run.
Author quotes
A business leader’s job is to create great teams that do amazing work on time. That’s it! That’s the job of management!
A company’s job isn’t to empower people; it’s to remind people that they walk in the door with power and to create the conditions for them to exercise it. Do that, and you will be astonished by the great work they will do for you.
The most important thing to understand about transforming a culture, whether that of a team or a whole company, is that it isn’t a matter of simply professing a set of values and operating principles. It’s a matter of identifying the behaviours that you would like to see become consistent practices and then instilling the discipline of actually doing them.
About the author
Patty McCord served as chief talent officer of Netflix for fourteen years and helped create the Netflix Culture Deck. Since it was first posted on the web, the Culture Deck has been viewed more than 15 million times, and Sheryl Sandberg has said that it "may be the most important document ever to come out of Silicon Valley.” Patty participated in IPOs at Netflix and, before that, Pure Atria Software. A veteran of Sun Microsystems, Borland, and Seagate Technologies, she has also worked with small start-ups. Her background includes staffing, diversity, communications, and international human resources positions. Currently, Patty coaches and advises a small group of companies and entrepreneurs on culture and leadership. She also speaks to groups and teams around the world.
Why LoA loves it….
Talk to any woman entrepreneur and often one of the biggest challenges facing the growth of their businesses is managing and growing their people. And often, all the advice and information about people management in business maybe relevant to big companies and organisations, but not exactly practical in a startup business. This new book by Patty McCord throws some great new ways of thinking into the mix, bringing practical and innovative insights into building great teams that are committed, passionate and genuine deliverers of the work that the business needs to grow. If you are a woman entrepreneur looking to grow the business and the people in your team, then this is a great read for you! --- Melanie Hawken, founder and ceo of Lionesses of Africa