Powerful - Patty McCord

Why read this book?

Company culture is always a popular topic - but what does it really mean?

Sometimes a positive culture can be confused with ‘fun stuff’ - the cool offices that have ping pong tables, bean bags and a sandpit to play in. Or sometimes confused with ‘perks’ - the organisations that offer unlimited holidays, flexitime and free breakfast.

Just as your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room - I would say a decent measure of your company culture is what your leavers say about your business.

This book highlights the key cultural elements that make up of one of the world’s current ‘cool’ organisations, Netflix, from the view of Patty McCord who helped to create their famous ‘culture deck’.

The author

From her website: Patty believes people come to work as fully formed adults with a desire to make an impact and be proud of what they do and she’s on a mission to spread the word that we can do this differently.

Personally, I think it’d be great if more people responsible for humans in organisations thought this way - everybody has applied for their job, so let’s take the starting point that they genuinely want to be good at it, and build an environment to make that happen.

Here’s a video of Patty doing her thing:

What has this book encouraged me to do differently?

It has shown me that the ideals that we hope to instil in business, that so often don’t progress beyond an individual or team level, really can be scaled up and become the norm in a successful global organisation.

The key concepts in the book often sound very much like common sense (like so much good advice often is!).

Ensure everybody knows the business - not just their own area, and not just the share price - but get a better understanding of what life is like in each department. How does what you do affect the accounts team? Are the requests you make easy or difficult for the tech team? By doing something a certain way, how does this affect the end customer? Take the time to know other areas of the business, how it all comes together, and how you contribute to it all in the most positive possible way.

Another key area is around employee fit and knowing your value. Netflix encourages you to go for interviews elsewhere… yes, with their competitors. Why? Because they are confident in their culture - if you genuinely think you’d be more content elsewhere, chances are you’re not the best long-term fit for Netflix, so it’s probably best you go now to make everyone happier in the long run. This process also gives employees a great awareness of their value in the market, which levels of seniority and salary they are best aligned with, and leaves no surprises at promotion / salary review time.

My favourite concept of the book is to make your organisation ‘a great place to be from’. Accept that people will move on, but in the time you have them, treat them well so they are proud to have worked with you and willingly tell anybody this in the future. Many new recruits at Netflix are recommended by former employees - there is very little need for recruiters, their wide reaching recruitment network consists of the highly skilled and knowledgable people that already know the business inside-out because they have worked there, and loved it.

Is your current organisation a great place to be from? Maybe have a browse of some of Patty’s work to see the difference you could make.