Patty McCord is an HR consultant that has worked for Netflix for 14 years, since 1998, working on building the company’s culture and ensuring its success in the long run. McCord and Reed Hastings, Netflix’s CEO, worked together on establishing the culture of the company and ensuring that they are only keeping the best employees.
McCord, as the result of the culture she helped create, was let go from Netflix in 2012-2013. Since then, she worked on a book about company culture, “Powerful” that was published last year, in 2018 and holds some essential lessons.
Constant Change Is the Key
For a startup or any company for that matter, growing constantly and conquering new territories is the most important thing. Everything surrounding you evolving so, if you are stagnating, one of your competitors will most certainly keep on innovating and take you over. Both as an individual but also as a company, not changing and improving will result in your death, in the long run.
“By keeping things the same, you’re assuring certain death.”
As Patty claims, even if all companies desire to experience growth they cannot avoid the pains and challenges that come with getting bigger, especially when it comes to the culture of your company.
Contrary to what people think, McCord considers that even if the company starts growing exponentially, its initial culture shouldn’t be preserved. In her view, you cannot have the same company culture that you had at 50 employees when you have 500.
Patty McCord doesn’t just consider that companies should be under constant change that’s reflecting their new circumstances but, companies should also be prepared at all times to initiate change otherwise they will just end up becoming less and less relevant.
Show up on Time
Patty McCord and especially Reed Hastings consider that showing up in time for meetings is of high importance in a company. Both of them consider that building a company culture that encourages punctuality is essential in a successful company.
McCord illustrates these lessons in her book through a story about Reed and the way he uses to discourage being late. If Reed was present in the meeting room and somebody was being late, he would make sure to set up the next meeting in such a manner that they would take the most important decisions first and leave the unpunctual people outside.
“If you’re prepared to talk about it, be prepared to show up on time.”
Being on time to a meeting as an individual that’s part of a company is highly important because otherwise you could paint a bad reputation, and end up affecting your career, especially if it’s a regular habit.
If you desire to play in the big league, you must be ready to commit to such high standards and show up on time to meetings, otherwise, your opinions might end up being discarded.
Conclusion
Considering Patty McCord’s long-lasting experience in the field of human resources as part of Netflix, her lessons regarding the company’s culture can be empowering at least. The culture lessons from Powerful can be influential both for company managers but, also for regular employees.
Her culture lessons are so essential that we included her book in our “The Best Books of 2018” list as well. We recommend reading Powerful, along with some of the other books present on our list.
