[Book Review / Summary] No Rules Rules : Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
I read NO RULES RULES !
This book is written by Reed Hastings, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Netflix, along with Professor Erin Meyer.
Professor Erin Meyer is one of the world’s most influential management thinkers in the top 50 management thinkers.
Caricatures are written for each part, so you can see which one is writing.
At first I didn’t know which was which, but the man is Reed Hastings Chairman and Professor Erin Meyer is a woman!
What a company that has no rules.
Are you confident that it will work in the absence of rules?
Or are you excited to hear that there are no rules?
If you are interested in the world’s freest company, NETFLIX, or a company with no rules, let’s read it together.
There has never before been a company like Netflix. It has led nothing short of a revolution in the entertainment industries, generating billions of dollars in annual revenue while capturing the imaginations of hundreds of millions of people in over 190 countries. But to reach these great heights, Netflix, which launched in 1998 as an online DVD rental service, has had to reinvent itself over and over again. This type of unprecedented flexibility would have been impossible without the counterintuitive and radical management principles that cofounder Reed Hastings established from the very beginning. Hastings rejected the conventional wisdom under which other companies operate and defied tradition to instead build a culture focused on freedom and responsibility, one that has allowed Netflix to adapt and innovate as the needs of its members and the world have simultaneously transformed.
Hastings set new standards, valuing people over process, emphasizing innovation over efficiency, and giving employees context, not controls. At Netflix, there are no vacation or expense policies. At Netflix, adequate performance gets a generous severance, and hard work is irrelevant. At Netflix, you don’t try to please your boss, you give candid feedback instead. At Netflix, employees don’t need approval, and the company pays top of market. When Hastings and his team first devised these unorthodox principles, the implications were unknown and untested. But in just a short period, their methods led to unparalleled speed and boldness, as Netflix quickly became one of the most loved brands in the world.
Here for the first time, Hastings and Erin Meyer, bestselling author of The Culture Map and one of the world’s most influential business thinkers, dive deep into the controversial ideologies at the heart of the Netflix psyche, which have generated results that are the envy of the business world. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with current and past Netflix employees from around the globe and never-before-told stories of trial and error from Hastings’s own career, No Rules Rules is the fascinating and untold account of the philosophy behind one of the world’s most innovative, imaginative, and successful companies.
There is no vacation policy ?
There is no approval process for travel expenses !
No decision approval !
Just the table of contents looks like interesting !
Responding to change
Twenty years ago (around 2000s), there were 9000 rental video stores called Blockbuster in the world.
On the other hand, Netflix, which received a DVD rental order on the WEB at that time and provided a mailing service, was stuck in management and was thinking of selling itself to Blockbuster.
The negotiations didn’t seem to go well.
However, ten years later (2010), Blockbuster went bankrupt, and in 2019, there was only one store in Oregon.
On the contrary, Netflix has achieved great achievements such as “ROMA” produced in-house was nominated for 10 categories at the Academy Awards and won 3 Oscar Awards on 3 categories.
What is this difference?
Over the last 20 years, there has been a change in the times from rental video to streaming.
How was Netflix able to respond to this change?
On the contrary, could blockbuster not respond?
Chairman Reed Hastings seems to think:
| Netflix | Blockbuster |
| Employee-focused | Process-focused |
| Focus on innovation | Focus on efficiency |
| Communicate with conditions | Managed by rules |
Adapting to change seemed important.
Professor Erin Meyer is said to have responded to major changes four times with Netflix.
Change from mailed DVD business to internet streaming of old TV and movies
Unique content from an external studio from streaming old content
Switch from an external studio to an in-house studio to provide rich content
From an American-only company to a global company
How can you create an organization that can respond to change?
In fact, Chairman Reed Hastings ran the company before Netflix.
There, he created rules every time he sees a mistake.
The result is efficient, but no innovation.
Netflix believed that two foundations were needed to give freedom from such an experience.
Create an organization with excellent human resources that do not require management (increase capacity density)
Give each other feedback to improve the quality of performance
By laying this foundation, business trip regulations and vacation regulations can be abolished.
Until the current system, NETFLIX repeats this cycle of increasing capacity density (density of in-house excellence)> increasing frankness (creating an environment for feedback, increasing transparency)> reducing control. It was repeated.
This creates a sense of speed and innovation that no other company can match.
Impressions
How was everyone?
Netflix is amazing!
It was persuasive to follow the actual situation on NETFLIX in chronological order and add the opinions of experts.
Also, the book gave examples of failures and effects, so it was interesting and fun to read!
By gathering excellent people and giving feedback to each other, extra management is unnecessary ^ ^
It’s no wonder that NETFLIX, which works in a free environment, has produced overwhelming performance.
In Japan, trying to do the same thing may be difficult, but it made me think again about the importance of people and human resources.
Certainly, it would be great if we could gather excellent people and create an environment that we do not manage strictly.
I want to try to gather excellent people and create better environment gradually.
I can not explain all contents of this book because there are many episodes in this book.
If you are interested, please read it ^^
Let’s learn Japanese words related to Netflix
| English | Japanese | Hiragana | How to Pronounce |
| Netflix | ネットフリックス | ねっとふりっくす | Nettohurikkusu |
| Video | ビデオ | びでお | Bideo |
| Delivery | 配達 | はいたつ | Haitatu |
| Rule | 規則 | きそく | Kisoku |
Thank you !
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