The foundation of a great business book is a great story and boy does Patty McCord have a great story. She joined Netflix right at the start, carpooled into work with the CEO each day and spent 14 years pioneering a radically performance focused HR approach. What makes her journey especially exciting and valuable is that her experience at Netflix isn’t just a reaction to the unique circumstances Netflix was in - pioneering a new market and a new technology- its the fact that McCord and CEO Reed Hastings set out from the start to build a company based on a different approach to people. So this isn’t the Netflix story told from a people and HR perspective, the Netflix story was always going to be told from a people and HR perspective, that’s what makes what happened at Netflix so valuable as a case study for everyone else.
McCord and Hastings had worked together before and had noticed that as companies grow and startups become scale ups, something bad happens. The talent density tends to drop. The ratio of super top high performers becomes less. It’s something I’ve personally seen and heard of a hundred times. It’s what is behind the constant warnings to entrepreneurs “Watch your culture as you grow”. These warnings are made with good intention, but they are ultimately useless as they come with no guidance as to what to do, how to “watch your culture” and what practically to do to keep that fast growing, autonomous startup mindset as you grow to hundreds or thousands of employees. Powerful is that guidance, it’s the manual.
With several decades of work in the Valley, Patty has developed a love for working with software engineers and that influence means she applies a product manager’s approach to HR. She has a goal of operating with minimal process and constantly tests eliminating procedures. But she does this in an agile way, like a good product manager would. She sets a low bar for people process innovation - “Is it safe to test?”, rather than “will this work”. If it is safe let’s change the process (commonly “lets remove the process) and see. If it turns out he policy was needed just re-instate it.
There are some things in the book that can only work in the Valley, in that unique place where VC cash at times is plentiful and the oversupply of jobs to talent distorts things like no where else on Earth. It’s easy to focus on these things, like “constantly ask your staff to interview elsewhere and see what they are worth” and dismiss the book as not practical to your situation or industry. But that would be a tragedy because the vast majority of the learnings and advice in this book are applicable to so many businesses and organisations.
The new employee college, teaching every single person how to read the P&L, tacking everyone how the company makes money, teaching everyone the key projects and key performance indicators for each department, communicating to everyone constantly what the 5 big challenges are the company is faced with, encouraging a practice of constant, respectful, radical honesty and feedback, understanding that great jobs are challenging jobs where great things get done, accepting that perks and food are at best peripheral decoration and the core thing you need at work is amazing people to work with and a great challenge to overcome - these are the central tenants of Powerful and they are applicable to any business, anywhere.
Powerful is beautifully written and Patty has an engaging, irreverent style. I flipped between the Kindle version and the audio book and can heartedly recommend both, sometimes its great to hear Patty’s voice and emphasis in the material.
Powerful is a fantastic read for managers, leaders, CEO’s, HR people - anyone at any level who cares about business and people and wants to help the people they work with do their best work.
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Reviews with images
Some minor dents if you're sensitive about that.
The book came with some minor dents in the paper cover of the hardbound, but nothing too serious and personally, doesn't matter a lot. I had it covered in plastic shortly after receiving it.
Top reviews from other countries
André Ferraz da Costa
Disrupção no's Talentos Humanos
Reviewed in Brazil on November 3, 2019
Paul Nazareth
One of the most human approaches to HR I've ever read
Reviewed in Canada on October 3, 2018