Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility

by Patty McCord

Initial start-up success requires making all kinds of mistakes and being willing to keep working incredibly hard trying all sorts of things, really pounding at it, until you have a product that’s viable and a market that’s receptive.

the problems are not so much ones solved by trial and error as ones requiring experience. They are problems of scale and complexity.

But nostalgia that inspires resistance to change will fuel discontent and often undermine growth.

True and abiding happiness in work comes from being deeply engaged in solving a problem with talented people you know are also deeply engaged in solving it, and from knowing that the customer loves the product or service you all have worked so hard to make.

but we had a rule that we would not discuss compensation with candidates until we knew they wanted to accept an offer.

In addition, rather than using stock options as “golden handcuffs,” we imposed no vesting period. Options would vest on a monthly basis.

What I heard was ‘Don’t expect there to be a long-term path for you.’ But working with amazing people and the opportunity to grow were more important to me than having an explicit promise of a path for promotion.”

“If you want your mind to be free and want to think of all kinds of radical things that may or may not happen, then Google is the place for you. We do one thing. We exist to serve our customers’ happiness as a result of that particular product. So if that’s not your passion, then go to Google. It’s a great company. It’s just very different.”

Making great hires is about making great matches. One company’s A player may be a B player for another firm, and vice versa. There is no generic formula for what makes people successful, despite a great deal of effort and all sorts of assessments to try to come up with one.

Organizations can adapt to many people’s styles; culture fit can work both ways.

she understood that more important than the match of a person’s prior experience was the match of their approach to problem solving.

This was when Netflix was first getting into streaming and was on only a few devices: Xbox, Roku, and TiVo. In interviews, Bethany told candidates that we had signed up a million new subscribers in just thirty days on one of those three devices, and she asked which one they thought it was. TiVo was really taking off then, so most people said, “TiVo for sure.” But this guy asked her whether there were any special conditions attached to getting a Netflix subscription on any of the devices. She told him that yes, in fact, for the Xbox you had to have a “gold membership.” He then reasoned that it must be the Xbox: since those users were already willing to pay a premium, they would probably be more inclined to pay the extra for Netflix. He was right, and that’s when she knew he was our guy.

This is an amazing story that demonstrate the kind of questions that needed to be asked

He still stuttered, but he gave me a riveting explanation, and I realized, That’s it! He’s great at making really complicated things understandable.

Bethany once decided to analyze the résumés of all the data science people we’d hired who were really good to see if she could find any common features, and she did: they shared an avid interest in music.

She concluded that these people could easily toggle between their left brains and right brains, a great skill for data analysis.

Good story but untrue, a great problem solver's attitude.

I knew the message was heard loud and clear because if I was ever late coming to meet with a candidate, and I said, “Sorry, I hope someone talked to you,” they’d say, “Six people talked to me.”

Our goal was for every single person who came in for an interview to walk away wanting the job, even if we hated them.

Speed and efficiency often meant we could close candidates who were interviewing with other great companies.

saw she was misty-eyed and asked her if anything was wrong. She said, “No, I built that team! I helped ship the Wii today!”

“Thanks to Bethany Brodsky, because without her we wouldn’t be here today!” That was what I wanted our recruiters to feel about their contribution to the business and what I wanted all managers to feel about the value of our recruiters.

Just imagine if instead of spending so much time on the review process, all of your people were spending that time collaborating to bring in extraordinary talent that accomplishes amazing products or services for your customers.

Retention is not a good measure of team-building success; having a great person in every single position on the team is the best measure.

Consider wide-ranging experiences and focus on people’s fundamental problem-solving abilities.

it should mean estimating the overall market value of the work a person will do for you in the time frame that you need it done.

Then I suggest identifying the positions that have the greatest potential to boost your performance and paying top of market to fill them with the very best people you can get.

But that’s if you’re thinking only about keeping to a budget, rather than about the value the person will generate for you, hopefully for quite a few years beyond your current budget year.

Winning games is the only measure of success for sports teams, which is why it’s not just players but coaches too who are replaced readily on top-performing teams.