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This got a recommendation from a friend of mine who's opinions I value.

A company is not a family...

"Don't try to please your boss. Try to please the business"

"Netflix treats employees like adults who can handle difficult information and I love that."

Not sure I agree with praising the maturity of adults. Met too many adults who don't behave any better like toddlers.

Sometimes this book reads like a communist manifesto. It assumes that people are all honest, have perfect judgement and highest skills. Of course does that vision sound nice. But is it realistic?

Netflix claims to pay their creative staff top of the market salaries. And even proactively increases salary if your market values rises. Appealing logic behind it. But I'm wondering how sustainable this approach is. Still a very interesting read.

Quote: "Once you have a workforce made up nearly exclusively of high performers, you can count on people to behave responsibly. Once you have developed a culture of candor, employees will watch out for one another and ensure their teammates’ actions are in line with the good of the company. Then you can begin to remove controls and give your staff more freedom. Great places to start are the lifting of your vacation, travel, and expense policies. These elements give people more control over their own lives and convey a loud message that you trust your employees to do what’s right. The trust you offer will in turn instill feelings of responsibility in your workforce, leading everyone in the company to have a greater sense of ownership."

Still an interesting read. Most stuff seems obvious though if one has read similar books already. But it's still good to read real life examples of principles applied and how they work out. What I like is that they also always give the bad example that educated their choice for a certain principle or policy they put in place. "Provide context" is their mantra and it works well for.

Reading this book felt like a dejavu. So many situations the authors describe have happened almost exactly as they describe them. We've made the same mistakes and hopefully have learned from them. It's very well written and relatable. Especially people who've not have worked for 20 years in the industry might find this an interesting read to possibly understand certain situations and avoid some of the mistakes we all use to make along our way.

Got this recommended by Sebastian Küpers (pixelsebi) from his YouTube channel "Strive Every Day"

"No Vacation Policy" - seems like a nice concept. It however depends very much, let me stress "very much", on the modelling behaviour of the bosses.

Liked the chapter about giving and receiving constructive feedback. Also like the summaries at the end as easy takeaways.

I'm still sceptical whether Hastings method is the holy grail of running a business. Very US American logic that momentary success justifies the approach.

I'm still sceptical whether Hastings method is the holy grail of running a business. Very US American logic that momentary success justifies the approach.