Entrepreneurs worry about their product, marketing, sales process, recruiting, finances, and operations, but often don’t think twice about designing their corporate culture. Forget about culture, and successful startups soon turn into The Office and Dilbert.
There isn’t yet a The Next Step book on how to design a corporate culture, but I do teach the topic in both my MBA Entrepreneurship class and at Fledge. This is the one topic I teach using case studies, and one key case is Nextflix, and their culture of Freedom and Responsibility.
What I didn’t know until last month is where this culture came from. Thanks to Patty McCord and her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, we all get the background on how Netflix came to have their culture.
I highly recommend the book, as it not only explains the history and the why behind each of the components of this unique corporate culture, but also because it shows that every part of a company can be questioned, tested, and improved, not only the product.
If you are an entrepreneur aiming to build a great company, don’t overlook this critical component, your corporate culture.
