No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention

How should a modern company run? We are told that a modern company needs to be customer centric, employee empowering, deliver broad stakeholder returns and with agility to move from one opportunity to the next. This book provides a provocative answer to these questions direct from the CEO.Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer have actually written two books in one. One book is “NO RULES” and the other is Netflix and the culture of reinvention. The combination is powerful as Reed shares experiences and stories and Erin puts them in a broader context. This keeps the book from becoming preachy.This book is recommended, but not for the reasons one might think.Read this book as a leader, because it is possible to create a level of these results within the scope of your team. This is a book for leaders who want to understand how they can attract and create high performance by adopting these ideas where possible.Reading this book from an organizational transformation point of view, frankly, is futile and hopeless for one simple reason. Your company is not a high talent density company. That is the essential, foundational and core reason for NETFLIX’s success – they have, hire, keep and constantly upgrade their talent. Becoming a high talent dense company requires living the following actions that are the foundation of the book:• You build up talent tensity by creating a workforce of high performers• You introduce candor by encouraging loads of feedback• You remove controls such as vacation, travel and expense policies• You strengthen talent density by paying top of the market, always• You increase candor by emphasizing organizational transparency• You release more controls such as decision-making approvals• You max-up talent density by implementing the Keeper Test• Max-up Candor by creating circles of feedback• Eliminate most controls by leading with context and note controlThese seem like normal empowerment related topics. Beware the book talks about how NETFIX embodies them to a degree that makes them all but impossible for the vast majority of companies – like 98%. Many will read this book and pay lip service to these principles, some CHRO’s will stand up and say that they are a talent dense company, but these are aspirational at best and insincere at the other end of spectrum.High-density talent is the core of NETFLIX and its ability to execute these strategies effectively. They are good, not because they have good people, they are NETFLIX because they work hard to always have the BEST PEOPLE. There is no average at NETFLIX, all are way above average when they are there and when they fall back to average – “adequate performance gets a generous severance package.”The selected quotes from the book demonstrate the centrality of high talent density to the company and anyone seeking to adopt these ideas.“We learned that a company with really dense talent is a company everyone wants to work for. High performers especially thrive in environments where the overall talent density is high.” Page 7.“We’d found a way to give our high performers a little more control over their lives, and that control made everybody feel a little freer: because of our high-talent density, our employees were already conscientious and responsible.” Page 54.“Once you have a workforce made up of nearly exclusively of high performers, you can count on people to behave responsibly.” Page 69.“Dispersed decision-making can only work with high talent density and unusual amounts of organizational transparency. Without these elements, the entire premise backfires.” P. 131.“One of the reasons this (high density) is so difficult is many companies is because business leaders are continually telling their employees, ‘we are a family.’ But a high-talent-density work environment is not a family.” Page 166.“At Netflix, I want each manager to run her department like the best professional teams, working to create strong feelings of commitment, cohesion and camaraderie, while continually making tough decision to ensure the best player is manning each post.” Page 169.“Leading with context won’t work unless you have the right conditions in place. And the first prerequisite is high talent density.” Page 201.Overall the book is well worth your time. Its entertaining, eminently readable and enlightening. It contains a number of ideas that will become organizational and leadership buzzwords in the future.Just read it with the caveat that very few companies have the capacity or true desire to put these ideas into practice at the organizational level.

Great for leadership, recruitment, and team building.

No Rules Rules is not a history of Netflix. It’s an extended account of the corporate values that have resulted in Netflix’s success as told by its cofounder/CEO Reed Hastings and accomplished business writer & academic Erin Meyer. This well written and clearly explained book offers insight into managing a creative company using non-traditional management techniques that give employees greater freedom and responsibility. However, the techniques are likely not as widely applicable as the authors imply.No Rules Rules follows a unique format, in which each author’s voice is clearly pointed out in their sections of each chapter, leading to a kind of dialogue between the two. This format creates balance. Each point is discussed from the insider/pragmatic perspective of Hastings and the more academic perspective of Meyer. Meyer will sometimes backup Hastings’s assertions with research outside of Netflix, or gently pushback against some of his more absolutist tendencies. Meyer appears to have had significant access to employees throughout Netflix while doing her research. However, there’s no section in which she completely disagrees with Hastings, and throughout most of the book the reader is simply getting the same point from multiple perspectives.The book revolves around the benefits of a corporate culture that empowers individual contributors to make decisions without bureaucratic tape and draconian oversight. This is meant to increase efficiency, improve flexibility, and help employees feel more satisfied with their roles. A couple specific examples are employees deciding for themselves the appropriate amount of vacation to take each year (no vacation policy) and signing contracts without getting approval from their managers. To get to this place of what the book calls “freedom and responsibility” there are certain prerequisites defined by the authors. These include a culture of candid feedback and achieving a high “talent density.”These corporate values have obviously served Netflix well, but they may not quite be the panacea they seem from reading the book. Unfortunately, despite Meyer’s involvement, the values are somewhat myopically presented within the confines of Netflix. Probably the most controversial point in the book is its assertion that “adequate” employees (sometimes interchangeably referred to as “good” employees) should be let go to make room for hiring “great” employees. This is presented rather uncritically, without the obvious introspection that it is easy for an industry leading organization like Netflix to have its pick of “great” employees waiting at the gates to get an opportunity to work for it when they let go of the “good” employees.The authors only caveat is that safety or process oriented companies (think nuclear reactor or industrial manufacturing) cannot risk freedom and responsibility. Yet, there are many other creative types of companies that cannot fulfill the prerequisites outlined by No Rules Rules. For example, there are creative companies that due to the limited profits in their industry cannot pay top-dollar and cannot risk letting go of “good” employees because there will be no “great” employees waiting to take their place.No Rules Rules is a good book for learning more about Netflix, how its corporate culture works, and how it has helped to make it successful. It’s sprinkled with enough interesting anecdotes and good writing to keep your attention. The unique format adds value and the non-traditional management techniques are interesting and surely have some merit. Yet, the book’s failure to acknowledge the unique circumstances of Netflix that make its unique culture possible, stop it from being a “great” book. It’s just a “good” book.

Reed Hastings was a pioneering force in self-management. 'No Rules Rules' is a joy to read, blending Hastings' firsthand experiences building Netflix with Erin Meyer's insightful perspective. The book explores whether self-management can truly scale and leaves readers curious about how Netflix will evolve in this new era without Hastings as CEO. Highly recommended for anyone interested in innovative leadership and the future of business.

If all companies followed this path the employees and company would rise to greatness. I highly recommend it.

What is great - The book is a roadmap of how to unleash innovation in your organization. Really a roadmap for any organization in the knowledge space today, with one caveat…What is questionable - Netflix’s talent density and running your org like a sports team where you buy bid for the best players and switch others out as they age out or perform less than what money could buy for someone else - is not a pattern that all companies can do. Only tech giants with deep pockets. We need to come up with models that can work with average people - because you know what? Most of the world is average. I think there are ways, but that I will leave for the book I am working on. In the meantime, this is a great book to read and take everything else for sure.

Listening to this book made me want to join Netflix!However, I would have liked more info on when to apply these rules: it seems great for medium size companies, but would it work in relatively new ones?It’s also quite MBA management focused. Do the same principles apply when managing technical workers? I assume so, but it would have been interesting to have it confirmed. Thanks for the book, I enjoyed it.

A wonderful story telling about Netflix culture. The book can be viewed not only as Netflix journey but as a recipe on how to implement a Netflix like culture. I strongly recommend this book to everyone.

Really a very good lecture about what must be a must In our personal life’s , me talking as a retired 40 years working engineer at different enterprises but under control & Processes umbrella bringing them to your way of leaving could turn into a chaos when you suddenly have apparently nothing to do , being the upmost and closing era of your life to manage yourself with freedom and responsibility. That’s is what it’s all about this very good reading , it is indeed a must read .

Ignoring the tiny land grabs with Marc Randolph, this is a brilliant resource to get one thinking about structure and agility, and how to scale the energy of startups to multinational level (something companies try to do a lot but rarely succeed). The two perspectives work like a Greek dialogue, making it fun, and the history is just plain interesting in and of itself. Must read stuff up there with Business Adventures.

📺 “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention” is an extraordinary book that provides an in-depth look at Netflix’s innovative and revolutionary corporate culture. Authored by Reed Hastings, the co-founder and CEO of Netflix, along with Erin Meyer, this book offers a candid analysis of how Netflix embraced innovation and cultural transformation to become one of the most influential and successful companies in the world.One of the key strengths of this book is its frankness in addressing corporate culture concepts. Hastings provides an honest account of the challenges and successes faced by Netflix in its endeavor to create a corporate culture based on trust, accountability, and freedom. Personally, I found it inspiring to read about how Netflix adopted a bold and experimental approach to corporate culture, encouraging creativity and innovation among its employees.Another strong point is the detailed analysis of Netflix’s unique business practices. The book explores concepts such as the “radical candor feedback culture,” trust-based performance management, and the “no rules” approach to leadership and organizational structure. These innovative practices have helped create a dynamic and stimulating work environment that has fueled Netflix’s incredible success in the streaming and entertainment market.Additionally, the book offers a wealth of valuable insights for companies looking to revamp their corporate culture and embrace innovation. Through concrete examples and case studies, Hastings and Meyer demonstrate how it is possible to transform corporate culture to adapt to the rapid changes in the business world and the market.In conclusion, “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention” is a book that I highly recommend to business executives, entrepreneurs, and managers who are interested in redefining corporate culture and promoting innovation and organizational change. With its in-depth analysis and practical advice, this book offers invaluable guidance for transforming corporate culture and creating a work environment that fosters success and business growth.

As a founder, we've been through the traditional route of process optimization while scaling up our team. And faced so many of the problems that Netflix found and solved.This book gives such a radical counterview to leadership and is inspiring in its journey of organizational thinking and design.