Jarrod Parkes

Powerful - Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility

2019-02-10

“Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility” by Patty McCord

My Notes

people have power
you don’t need tons of programs to empower people; instead, you need to remind them of their power and give them the freedom is exercise it
be radically honest, accept questions, and have open, honest debate
be fact-based
it’s not about process and procedure; it’s about discipline
outside resource: Netflix culture deck

Free people up from excess process wherever possible
Only hire high performers
No incentive program beats having an awesome team who loves to tackle problems together
Treat your company like a product too

Employees will work better when they know how the business works, it’s challenges, competitors etc
Communication should flow up and down
Instead assuming some just doesn’t get it, take that as an opportunity to better inform your coworker so they know exactly how things work
Could you stop any employee in the hall and ask them the 5 biggest challenges facing the company and they give a valid response?

“Have you said that to their face?”
Honest feedback should always include how to be better and not just your grievances
Use “start, stop, continue” regularly (could use it like Google “snippets”) and don’t talk behind people’s back
Don’t use anonymous feedback
People want the truth, especially face-to-face
Model being wrong so employees feel more comfortable sharing feedback

All employees should feel lead to openly question and debate the company’s business decisions
Opinions should be fact based, not just data based and you should encourage people to support their opinions with facts: “what facts lead you to that conclusion?”
This only works when people feel and display respect in the debate
Be “data-informed” instead of “data-driven”
Beware of vanity metrics or metrics for the sake of metrics (useless metrics)
All arguments should be for the sake of the company and its customers, when it is not, it should stop
You should always be revising the data you care about
For big enough debates, hold them in front of a team of coworkers and have each side of the argument debate for the other side
^ this is so much more effective than “a seminar”

Just like you think of your future product and success, think of the future team you’ll need to get there; think ahead 6 months and ask yourself what kind of team you’d need
Think of your team as a sports team, not a family — some people may have to leave or move on, you’ll occasionally need to add more pieces to win, and sometimes people can be groomed into new positions
You probably don’t need more people… you probably need less people with more skills
Trying to grow someone into a new role usually isn’t better than just bringing in someone who has experience doing that role
[my thoughts] Netflix and I’m sure many other companies aren’t going to invest in you… they put that responsibility on you, not them; that sucks, but just proves that if you want a new role you’re going to have to get it yourself, and it may require you up-skill yourself instead of relying on the company to do/reimburse it for you
^ The business’ responsibility is refining the product, finding the market, and growing

Retention isn’t the best metric, instead make sure you have the best talent in the positions that make sense right now
Who is an A player at one company may be a B player somewhere else, it is about finding the right match
Hiring managers need to be as engaged as anyone in HR/people when it comes to finding and hiring the best folks
At Netflix the hiring managers made the ultimate decision and the people operations folks laid the groundwork
At Netflix, everyone in recruiting knows the business just as well as any executive
All hiring managers should create and nurture their own talent pipeline

Determine salary offers based on what you are willing to pay right now
benchmarks and tools are nice, but it is better to consider your specific context — those tools cannot equate everything (your need, the potential competitor offers, the amount of experience doing exactly what you’re going to need them to do, they are usually behind to curve too, etc)
Decouple salary and performance reviews; pay top of market and consider that an employee’s work with you may increase their skills which would increase what others would be willing to pay for them (completely untethered to annual reviews)
Don’t hire based on a “budget”, hire based on the amount of value you think this person is going to bring

Instead of annual performance reviews, sit down with your teammates once “every 10 games” (could be once a month or after each project or after a set of sprints) and look over how things have been going and course correct
If there is a clear path to up-skill a person using a PIP (performance improvement plan) then do it, but otherwise forgo the process and find someone else who fits the skill set you need now and in 6 months from now
Most of the frustrations that people have around letting someone go has more to do with the fact that people were not honest enough (or quick enough) to talk openly about changes that are/were happening in the company and the fact that a persons skill isn’t what will be needed in 6 months from now or that they haven’t been working out
Don’t make promises about being able to keep people forever when there is a great chance you want be able to
Sometimes people join a company, do the job they are needed to do, and then move on — that’s fine
Don’t sugarcoat your messaging to employees and also don’t shove people into roles they aren’t suited for or don’t have experience solving; you could do that or train them… sure, but that should be the exception and not the expectation
Use the algorithm: is this what a person loves to do? is this something they are great at? is this something we need somebody to be great at?

Culture is the strategy of how we should work
Make sure your HR people are your partners and they understand your business and market
Help people unlock their power!