Today I hopped on to Audible during a long drive. I went to look for Pachinko, a novel my mom had purchased. We share Kindle and Audible accounts, and she often has great finds. I looked at my book list, and Pachinko was gone. I was 70% of the way into it. I was a little confused, but I wasn't that broken up about it. The book wasn't evolving much beyond where it started.
I texted my mom, found out she hadn't liked it and had returned it to Audible.
On to my next choice: Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord. One of my favorite portfolio CEOs, Devon Tivona of corporate travel management company Pana, had recommended the book to me.
Within 10 minutes, my mind was completely blown. Patty McCord was an early leader at Netflix and one of the key creators of the famed Netflix Culture Deck. If you haven't read that, go read it now. The core elements of the Culture Deck sync with many of the key precepts of the Conscious Leadership work I do with companies and we teach at Leadership Camp.
All I needed to hear were these thoughts to become five times more immersed in this business book than I'd ever been in the award-winning novel my mom had pulled off my device.
- The idea that people have power. A company’s job is not to take it away.
- The simple idea that Reed Hastings persuaded her to join early Netflix by presenting the daring idea to "build a company we would both want to work at."
- The grounding theme that high-performing people want to work hard and solve big problems
- The contrarian -- but resonant -- position that the greatest perk you can give employees is the chance to work with other high-performing people
The book is only getting better, but I didn't want to wait another minute to suggest that you go out and get it now. This is as nice an articulation of how to apply authentic leadership as I can imagine.
