So today I got crushed by traffic as it took me 3 hours to get from my place of work, IGSL, to our kids’ school to pick them up. Manila traffic is no joke. I was an hour late and was “that” parent. But, the only benefit of the whole thing was that I was listened to Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by former Netflix Exec Patty McCord. Amazingly I covered about 90% of the book in the car on that long and frustrating trip courtesy of Audible.
In some ways, this is just another leadership book as we often see from the Business sector with advice and stories of what to do or not do based on experience. But this in other ways was very different, at least for me, because she writes as a former HR Exec and much of the book deals with culture shaping through the lens of HR. It is helpful given part of my job involves being an HR Director of a graduate school. So I had unusually high interest in hearing her perspectives on recruiting, hiring, firing, performance reviews, feedback and much more.
I’m not sure there was tons new to me, but I enjoyed being pushed to think deeper about the why’s behind different things, processes and policies. It’s helpful to hear perspective about a lot of the things that I often have to deal with or am responsible to do. I most enjoyed her chapters on feedback, data, and firing people. There were some things that were new or refreshing in each of those chapters that I drew some things from.
Another perk is it’s always helpful to hear behind the scenes stories about a place like Netflix, where you are familiar with the product or service and it’s fun to learn about what went into it from a leadership or organizational standpoint.
Not sure it would be my #1 leadership culture book I point people to, but it’s worth a read for HR folks even though not everyone’s HR context functions similarly (mine is quite different from Silicon Valley for example).
