Interesting Look At Business Practices Less Common Than Many Claim. Let me be clear here: I am a 14 year professional software developer in my "day job". I've worked for very small companies with barely 100 people and owned by a single person all the way to one of the largest companies on the planet (Fortune 50). And because I've had a 14 year career in this field as of 2021, that means this has all been done since NetFlix has been doing its thing.

And yet while I've heard that the Valley works a bit differently than the East Coast / Southern companies I've worked for, I'd never heard of several of the policies Hastings and Meyer discuss in this text. For this developer, most of them sound *phenomenal*, and I would *love* to work in environments that had them. Though there are others - "Adequate performance is given a generous severance" in particular - that would exacerbate issues I've already had at times in my career. Here, Hastings explains the reasons he adopted these policies at NetFlix and how they have grown over the company's existence. Meyer provides a degree of "outsider feedback" going around interviewing people at all levels from Hastings to the janitors and examining the claims Hastings makes.

Overall, this is a solid business book explaining these policies, why NetFlix chose them, why other businesses should - or should not, in certain situations - and how they can begin to be implemented in any company. More for Executives than heads down coders or low level team leads, though there are some interesting points even at those levels. It is absolutely something business leaders should read and ponder, and it is a good primer for those who may want to push for similar changes in their own companies. Very much recommended. ( )

A very different approach to run an effective business from the Netflix team.

It's certainly a thought provoking read and there are many strategies that could be adopted by a number of businesses. However, some are clearly rooted in American business culture and legal framework where employees have fewer rights than in Europe and the UK.

I would still recommend this book, it just needs to be read with local regulations firmly in mind. ( )

A must-read for managers and founders who want to see the other extreme of transparency and pushing down decision making; how it works at Netflix. Hard to imagine it working out as well in a less successful company but still a very interesting case study. ( )

Reed Hastings brought in a culture of high performance and great candor at NetFlix. This book details the journey across two decades of building NetFlix as a global multinational by creating its own unique culture. Authors detail out the key organisational behaviours that made NetFlix a high throughput organisation. Well written with three perspectives presented throughout the book, Reed’s, outsider perspective by Erin and of employees. ( )

Before reading this book, you should read Carol Sanford's "No More Feedback."

Before getting into the book review, I'll ask a question on epistemology: how do we choose a management theory? Just like dieting, there are books that well tell us just about anything about management theory: give lots of feedback; don't give any feedback; pay your employees well; pay your employees cheaply.

You might respond: "I'll do what works. Show me the data." But this is a cop out—different approaches have different micro results based on their contexts. On the other hand, practices eventually influence the noosphere, and shift the cosmology of an industry or domain. In other words, whatever management theory you implement will influence your domain—not just through its results, but also through the assumptions it makes about human nature.

Now to move into the book review:

The book is structured in a four-tiered spiral. Each cycle moves through these steps: increase talent density, increase candor, remove controls.

Now to come back to a contrast with Sanford's work—the fundamental question in both books is whether or not humans can develop, and how?

To oversimplify:

Hastings and Meyer assume a behavioral approach—people are a product of the expectations placed on them, and there's only so much we can do to work with an individual's potential. Most people aren't exceptional, so we need to put in place gated strategies that weed out the bottom nine tenths of the bell curve.

Sanford assumes a regenerative paradigm: each person, and each company, have an essence, and the capacity of both in manifesting the potential of that essence is limitless. Her basic framework aims to further internal agency, external considering, and an internal locus of control.

Hastings and Meyer's title heralds a work culture of freedom and responsibility. And yet are you really free if you're part of a team where you get fired for one improper expense, or one innovative quarter? On control spectrum, Hastings and Meyer seem to be claiming that they've moved away from control, but they've simply traded hard control (traditional hierarchies) for soft control (be creative—but if we don't like your work, we can fire you at any time). Sanford's approach, on the other hand, moves beyond both hard and soft control into something entirely different.

Is Netflix's approach comprehensible and something that can be implemented without a lot of creativity? Yes. Is it revolutionary? No. ( )

Wie googelt op de bedrijfscultuur van Netflix vindt controversiële oneliners en stellingen die vragen om context. En dat is exact wat Netflix CEO Reed Hastings & Erin Meyer (auteur van The Culture Map) al samenwerkend hebben uitgewerkt hebben in No Rules Rules: Waarom Netflix zo succesvol is. Dat er geen overnight success was, blijkt uit het vele experimenteren en stap voor stap loslaten van controles. Hastings heeft radicaal gefilterd op wat hij talentdensiteit noemt. Alleen de besten mogen blijven, de rest kan opzouten, ook al werken ze zich uit de naad. En ja, dat kost een royale ontslagvergoeding. Evenzeer belangrijk is een tot in het extreme doorgevoerde openhartigheid. Van vooraf vertellen van koersgevoelige jaarresultaten tot het direct en in persoon geregeld geven van feedback in een volledige 360 graden setting. In die context zijn zaken als een jaarlijkse hoeveelheid vakantiedagen, goedkeuringen voor reis- en onkosten afgeschaft, is autonomie zo laag mogelijk in de organisatie belegd en is iedereen vervangbaar en toch weer niet. De collega voor wiens behoud bij Netflix je wilt vechten, verdient een topsalaris en al je aandacht.

En dat dan in een boek van bijna 300 pagina's. Aan een half woord genoeg hebben is duidelijk nog geen deel van de Netflix cultuur. Ruim tweederde gaat op aan anekdotes tot op het zeer vermoeiende af. Voorbeelden komen vaker voorbij en ook The Culture Map wordt aan het eind nog eens dunnetjes overgedaan, al zit daar ook de nuance van maatwerk binnen de lokale landscultuur in voor een wereldwijd opererend bedrijf. ( )