My guest today is Patty McCord. Patty McCord served as chief talent officer of Netflix for fourteen years and helped create the Netflix Culture Deck, which has been viewed on Slideshare over 15 million times (Sheryl Sandberg has referred to this deck as “ the most important document ever to come out of the Valley.”). She is also the author of “Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility”. In this episode, we talk about:
- How Patty uses her time on planes
- How her life is different post-Netflix
- How Patty prepares for presentations
- The key to making unlimited paid leave work
- Her commutes in to work with Reed Hastings and the critical role this played
- Why she did most of her one-on-one meetings outside walking
- The importance of being radically honest at work – and how to get better at it
- How to change a culture
- Why many companies’ bonus systems are broken
- What executives need to expect from their HR people
Find Patty at pattymccord.com, buy her book Powerful and check out the Netflix Culture deck.
And here are links to some of the things Patty referred to in our chat:
Books
Imagine it Forward – Beth Comstock
The Five Disfunctions of Team – Patrick Lencioni
When – Dan Pink
Quiet – Susan Cain
Podcasts
Recode, Decode – Karen Swisher
Axios
Check out the full transcript of the episode below:
Patty: For me, when I’ve watched, you know I’ve been doing this for 35 years, and I’ve watched human behaviour. There’s two things that are really painful emotions. One of them is shame that you did something that you’re just embarrassed or humiliated about. It’s a really hard emotion to deal with. The other one is surprise. When something happens, and you feel like everybody knew but you. Which kind of leads to shame right? Why would anybody want to make another person feel either one of those things? The way to get ahead of both of those things, is just to be honest, when the situation is small. You know, it’s that buildup over time.
Amantha: Welcome to How I Work. A show about the tactics used by leading innovators to get so much out of their day, I’m your host, Doctor Amantha Imber. I’m an organisational psychologist, the CEO of Inventium, and I’m obsessed with finding ways to optimise my workday. My guest today is Patty McCord. Patty served as the Chief Talent Officer and Netflix, for 14 years, and helped create the now very famous Netflix Culture Deck, which has been viewed on SlideShare over 15 million times. In fact, Sheryl Sandberg referred to this deck as the most important document ever to come out of the Valley. Personally, I came across this deck several years ago, and it really challenged, and changed my views, about how I think about the world of work. It’s just brilliant, if you haven’t seen it. I’ll make sure I link to it, in the show notes.
Patty is also the other of Powerful, which is all about how she built a culture of freedom and responsibility at Netflix, and is an excellent read. One of my favourite parts of the interview though is when we talk about radical honesty, which is something that Patty is a huge champion of. She talks about how we can all be more radically honest at work. Which I know I personally found, very, very helpful. On that note, over to Patty to find out about how she works. Welcome to the show.
Patty: Thank you, I’m so excited to be here, and glad to talk about sort of the evolution of my book, and my talks, and all the other stuff you want to talk about, can’t wait.
Amantha: I know, I know, I’m really excited to actually hear about how your life is different now that you’re not at Netflix, because you were at Netflix for about 14 years or a little bit over, and you’ve been out for about six years, and back at Netflix, in your words, you were a real executive, in embedded commas. I’m curious how have your working habits and routines changed in the last six years.
Patty: Oh, it’s so unpredictable now, it’s just wonderful. I don’t have a big to do list every day. I have a lot of freedom. It’s kind of packed into, so for the last year, since I wrote the book, I’ve been mostly working on promoting the book. I’ve done lots, and lots, and lots of speaking engagement. It kind of works out that every month I’m on the plane or on the road for a couple of weeks, and when I’m not on the plan or on the road meeting with people, I’m here at my little house in Santa Cruz, um, and I go for a walk with my grand-dog, and I work at my garden, and I’m building a new house, and I ride my e-bike all around town.
Amantha: It sounds like you travel a lot, you spend a lot of time on planes. I’m curious, how do you use your time on aeroplanes?
Patty: Well, my number one use of time on aeroplanes is to binge watch Netflix. Because I love like, I could do a whole series you know, and weep, and cry, and laugh, all in one long plane ride. I read a lot on planes. I read on my Kindle or on my iPad. That’s when I kind of catch up on other people’s work or other business stuff. I’m a fan of a good novel too, so that’s kind of what I do on planes, I’m not a big sleeper on planes unless I’m going to Europe, and then I have to be lying down, because I don’t do that very well.
Amantha: That’s interesting, I find that with the people that I’ve spoken to for this podcast, they’re all about leisure and relaxation on planes, or they’ve got some really sort of big work goals, that they want to hit on the plane. It sounds like sort of more toward the relaxation side, but a little bit of catching up as well?
Patty: Yeah, and I think it’s partly because once I get there, I’m either consulting directly with a company, or a group of engineers, or a group of executives, or I’m speaking at a large function. I find that speaking take a lot of energy. I kind of have to be up for it. The research I’ll often do on the plane, is the background of who am I going to speak with right? How long has the company been around, what are their issues? I do the news searches, and just as much as I can find out, so that when I get there, then I’m prepare for sort of who I’m speaking to, what my audience is, and what their concerns are. I guess, that’s the work part about it. I have to balance it, because I have to be on right? That’s the part where the binge watching helps me sort of just chill my brain out a little, so I can talk to them.
Amantha: Yeah, and how do you prepare for a presentation? Like what does that look like from your client briefing you on the event, through to delivery? Can you take me through what that process is like for you?
Patty: Sure, usually people come to my website directly, and contact me about speaking with them, or working with the company. I look at a couple things. I’m semi-retired now, so I look at where they are. Do I want to go to Australia again? Since I went three times last year right? Who the entity is, themselves, that are asking for me. This year honestly, I spoke at some events that I might not choose to do again. Because I really wanted to cram my schedule full of exposure for the book. Then, there’s been a really interesting evolution over the six years I’ve been gone. I told my staff when I left Netflix, if I ever become one of those motivational speakers, just kill me now. Little did I know, that a couple of things would happen simultaneously. One of them is speaker’s bureaus, and big organisation are really, really, really interested in having a woman speaker on the roster. I know that I get more calls, because I’m a woman. B, my subject matter, which is working, is pretty appropriate for everybody. C, I did not anticipate loving talking to HR people as much as I do.
Because when the doors are closed, and it’s just us, and I have credibility, you know I’m one of them, I’m not an academic saying, “You know, here’s what I think is the future of work.” Which I love when I hear from academics, and professors, they’re always telling me about the future of work. I’m like, “You work at a college.” You don’t work. I mean it’s just, or reporters right? Sometimes when I talk to reporters, I’m like, where did you get this notion? Like do you ever even got to work at the Wall Street Journal? You guys are all freelance right? I didn’t anticipate how much I would enjoy talking to the real people who can really innovate about the future of work, and those are executives and HR people. The other thing that happens serendipitously to my emergence to the world, is the MeToo movement. I have a lot to say about that. Talking to women’s organisations has been really, really satisfying.
Amantha: How do you decide what you’re going to cover in a presentation? I feel like in interviews I’ve heard you in, you’re really great at telling stories. Stories are obviously a really important part of presentations. I’m curious, were you always such a good story teller? Is this a skill that you’ve learned? Tell me about that.
Patty: No, I always was. Partly because how I view culture in a company is very much cultural anthropology right? I’m kind of, you’re probably too young, but I always tell people I’m the Margaret Meade of Corporate culture. Culture is rituals. Culture is what you celebrate. Culture is the stories that you tell. It’s the way you operate, and how it changes from the way you operate as a village to a city, to a country. All of those same ways of looking at how humans interact with each other is for me, very scientific. I tell people … Startups say to me, oftentimes, we have a wonderful culture, what do we do to keep it? I say, “Well, there’s only three endings to a startup, so let’s be clear about them. You’ll get bigger, you’ll get smaller, or you’ll get eaten.” Smaller’s death right? You can’t keep your culture. You can, or you’ll die. You’ll die right? Because then you can’t grow. Culture’s about how you reform and reorganise as you grow, so story telling is something that I think I perfected doing because of my role in a company. Because I could make those behaviours human right? I could say to … I’ll give you an example.
Oh, how did you ever get no paid time off to work? Didn’t people either A, never take any time off of work all the time. B, not ever show up to work, or get anything done. How did you make people behave around time off, in an adult manner? The way I would do it, is I would say to my executive team and leadership team, you have to be the employee you want right? You have to take time off. If as a leader, you don’t take time off and come back, and make everybody look at your vacation photos, then you won’t saying, “It’s healthy to take time off.” It’s a good thing to get away from here and relax, right? Then, I could turn in the tales about so and so’s vacation where he built and igloo with an ice axe, into a story about, and you know whenever does that, he comes back with a new product idea. There’s a correlation I’m sure of it.
Amantha: Definitely. Back in your Netflix days, you write about in your book, Powerful, like several anecdotes around your drives to work with Reed Hastings. I’m curious what role did that car pooling have in your working life, and you know the development of the culture that you did build at Netflix?
Patty: You know I often think about, when I watch Car Pool Karaoke, I think yeah it’s too bad we weren’t karaoke-ing, because that would’ve been really fun if we had done it to music. I don’t know, there’s something intimate about just being in you know just the two of us right? It was a really safe environment, where there weren’t any other interruptions. I think how we kind of learn to use it, at one point, Reed was on the California Board of Education. He would drive a pretty long way to our state’s capital, and he had a driver. The good news was he had then three hours of uninterrupted time. The bad news is that he’d use it to call me. He was trapped in there. The thing about even having a one on one meeting at work, which you certainly can do, you’re surrounded by work. You’re surrounded by other people doing … Interruptions, and thinking about all the things that you could be doing or should be doing. The talks that we had about culture, we kind of needed to have just him and me, which is where I could say to him directly, “That’s insane, nobody’s going to do that right?” You mean legally? I don’t know if we can do that or not.
I could say, “Then just tell them no.” That’s okay, one of the things it’s okay to say is no. I think it was a really important part of it, but Reed and I worked together for gosh 25 years. We have a lot of history and ways of working together, you know the care was just an enhancer, it wasn’t critical.
Amantha: That’s interesting what you say about the car being that kind of precious time where you’re not distracted by anything else. I’m curious, outside of the car environment how did you find those moments or those times at Netflix, when you were this incredibly busy executive? How did you create that time for yourself?
Patty: You know I live in California, so we have pretty great weather all the time. We’re kind of like you in Australia. I did lots and lots, and lots, of my one on ones walking around. We had a building next to a park and so instead of meeting in a conference room, we’d meet going for a walk. I think that, that going for a stroll and having a conversation, it just sets you free. It’s an easy going kind of pace, and banter. Two secrets, I think one of them is get outside and second walk around. Because not such an insular environment. You think about all of your meetings, especially about stuff that’s people oriented or emotional, or controversial, or conflict oriented is if you’re inside the box that is your company, you’re constantly thinking about how might this be affected? Which are all things you have to think about. When you’re just going for a stroll, it’s just you and me.
Amantha: Yeah, that’s a really nice way of looking at it. How about when it was just you? When you needed to be on your own to do some thinking? Did you have strategies that you would use at Netflix just to get away from it all? Would you go for walks on your own, or do something else?
Patty: You know I had for most of my working life, I had three kids at home. My break in the day, was the to and from commute. I didn’t always carpool with Reed, that was an occasional thing. That was kind of the only me time that I had. I think before we got started, you asked me something about the difference between working then and working now. I can’t tell you how great it is not to have somebody on either that doesn’t need something from me. Doesn’t have a problem to talk about. It’s like, I can go hours without somebody else’s problem. It’s absolutely wonderful.
Amantha: I can imagine, I can imagine. Speaking of problems I guess, and hearing about them, the concept of radical honesty is something obviously that you write about in Powerful, and I’ve heard you speak about. I feel like most companies don’t practise this. This is probably the exception rather than the rule. How do you teach someone to practise radical honesty, or to be radically honest?
Patty: Well first let me tell you why I think it’s really important. The thing about politics, and about subtle nuances in communication, is that they’re very inefficient. I write in the book, look if I’m going to stab you in the back, you’ve got turn around, I’ve got to get a knife, I’ve got to stab you, I’ve got to hope you die, got to clean up the … I mean, this is very complicated stuff, and it takes a lot of time, and it’s a lot easier for me to just learn how to say, “Look what you’re doing right now makes me crazy, please stop.” You can say, “Oh, I didn’t realise it made you crazy.” You stop. Right, what a concept right? The second thing you said that’s really important is you used the word practise, practise radical honesty. Here’s the deal, I’m really good at it, because I practise. It is a closed loop. It’s about efficiency, and efficacy when you say something to somebody’s face that helps them improve their performance or be a better part of the team. If you say something to somebody’s face, that helps them improve their performance and be a better part of the team, and that’s sincerely why you’re saying it, then the person on the receiving end, is not going to be all defensive, when you tell them they could do something differently.
Here’s the other part about radical honesty, that always gets lost in the noise. People think radical honesty equals feedback, equals constructive criticism, equals telling somebody something that they don’t want to hear in a really nice way. As a parent, you can translate that into guilt tripping right? I say that bad thing that you just did, that was a bad, bad thing, don’t do that bad thing again because if you do, do that bad thing again, because you will, you’ll feel bad. Right? I mean it’s kind of not very effective feedback right? The radical honesty is not only just saying, “Hey, you could do that better, in the moment that you’re doing it.”
Also, in the moment saying, “That’s exactly what I’m talking about, that was awesome.” Right? Which is super effective feedback right? The one we all forget about, the one that actually works. The one where you get a treat. It’s again, the theme we’ll have I think in this conversation is that people can’t be what they can’t see. The more that people can see other people giving each other really honest feedback in person in the moment, the more as an observer, you can say, “Well, that wasn’t that bad. That wasn’t that hard.” It’s why I have a such a visceral reaction to the annual performance review. It’s like really, you give somebody feedback once a year? What makes you think you’re going to be any good at something you only do once a year. I mean, name one other thing you do once a year in your life that you’re good at? Nothing. The important part of the phrase that you use, practise radical honesty, is practise.
Amantha: Can I ask, are there still times though, can you thank of an instance, where you do feel a bit nervous before giving someone some radically honest, constructive feedback?
Patty: Sure all the time. If it’s not a little edgy, then it’s probably not worth it right? I mean, and the other thing is to keep in mind, when you’re doing radically honest feedback is, to what end. I used to tell my HR team, I was just actually at Netflix last week, visiting one of my colleagues is now a VP there in HR. She brought me in sort of like, “Here comes Patty, the grandmother of the Netflix Culture Deck.” I told them, I said, “Yeah, I used to tell Bethany in the group, yes, we are a service organisation, it’s not spelled, S-E-R-V-AN-T-S.” The people that we serve don’t work here. The people that we serve are the people all over the world that use the product and the service. It’s our job to make sure that we’ve got the teams and the tools to produce an amazing experience for everyone of our customers, so they keep coming back forever. When I’m saying to you, “I think if you just told that to his face, for once, then we wouldn’t all keep dancing around this problem, that’s really making us not very functional across these two departments.” You keep complaining to me about it, but you don’t tell him about it, and I’m not going to tell him about it, I don’t work for him.
This is wasting our time, just go for a walk. Go sit down with that person and go, “This isn’t working very well, how can we do it differently?” Right? The thing is, it’s funny, because you haven’t mentioned this yet, but a lot of people read my book, and they think, wow, she’s such a hard ass. They meet me, and they’re like, “Oh, you’re so warm and friendly.” I’m like, “I’m not talking about being unkind.” I’m just talking about telling the truth. It doesn’t have to be negative.
Amantha: Yeah, and I guess what you’re saying is that it’s often kinder to tell the truth, than have something go unsaid or just talk about something behind their back. As opposed as to their face.
Patty: Don’t you think so?
Amantha: Yeah.
Patty: I mean don’t you think so. You know for me, when I’ve watched, you know I’ve been doing this for 35 years. I’ve watched human behaviour, there’s two things that are really painful emotions, one of them is shame, right? That you did something that you’re just embarrassed or humiliated about. It’s a really hard emotion to deal with. The other one is surprise. When something happens, and you feel like everybody knew but you, which kind of leads to shame right? Why would anybody want to make another person feel either one of those things. The way to get ahead of both of those things is just to be honest when the situation is small. You know, it’s that buildup over time. Yeah, because you can hear that. I mean, I can say that to you. Who was I talking to the other day? Oh, here’s a fun story. I’m talking to a woman, it’s about the MeToo stuff. She’s a reporter for the Guardian in the UK. She’s basically the premise of her article is, “Oh those bad boys in Silicon Valley are making things so uncomfortable for women. Those bad, bad, bad, young white male tech guys. The Silicon Valley has such a problem. The Silicon Valley has such a problem.”
I said, because you’ve never, you’ve never been discriminated against as a female reporter for the Guardian right? She’s like, “The story’s not about me.” I said, “Yes it is, it’s about all of us.” It’s like, “You know, I’m not going there, like yeah, there’s a lot of bad behaviour out here, don’t get me wrong. I’m not proud of it, but the issues that we’re dealing with are fundamental cultural issues at work, between men and women. That’s the problem we have to solve not those scathing bad kids out there in California, there they go again.
Amantha: Yeah, that’s very true. I want to shift gears into the role that you play as an advisor now to companies such as Warby Parker, and HubSpot. I’d imagine as part of being an advisor, you’re doing a lot of mentoring work with founders. I’m curious as to whether you have any kind of go to questions that you’ve found are particularly powerful at helping people grow, and gain insight into what they’re sort of grappling with.
Patty: Yeah, first I try and take a look. This is back to the research I told you that I do like when I’m on the plane, when I’m ready to meet with any group of executives or any company. I try and figure out what it is that the company, or the leadership team says they are. HubSpot’s a great example. I started working with HubSpot right after I left Netflix, because Dharmesh Shah, who is one of the co-founders of HubSpot, wanted to do a culture deck for HubSpot, that was inspired by the Netflix Culture Deck. He would send me these long emails overnight. He’s an engineer right? He’d stay up all night, I’d wake up in the morning, I’m like, “Well, somebody didn’t sleep last night.” We worked together for a long time just he and I sort of talking about and wordsmithing the document that he was creating. The important work that I did with HubSpot over time, is that I went to Boston, and I sat down with his executive team, one on one, or as a group, or with his head of HR, and say, “Give me an example today of when you saw this demonstrated?” Mostly, it’s about working with the leaders of companies saying, “I don’t care what you said, if it’s not demonstrated in what you do.”
That’s where most companies get their nickers in a wad about culture. They want it to be a document or a podcast, or a film, or a t-shirt, or a slogan, or a game right? It’s not. It’s a series of constructs that says, “This is how we’re going to behave together at work. This is what I can expect from you, and this is what you can expect from me.” Mostly it’s about talking to them about how do they act as leaders, that is in line with the company they say they want to build. Does everything line up? Does the system of compensation and rewards reflect the business case to the customer? Here’s a simple example. I work with a lot of companies who have performance bonus programmes. Particularly in sales, but often for everybody else. It’s a year end bonus that’s based on employee’s performance through the year. When I dig deep into what those systems actually are, I find out that they’re very, very administratively heavy exercises, that tie into a bunch of written goals, and expectations, and deliverables, and blah, blah, blah. They always get paid. If you have a bonus system that you always pay 100%, unless you’re not there anymore, it’s not a bonus system anymore. It’s not a reward system, it’s just deferred compensation.
I might sit with them and say, “Since you’re putting off giving that pay, for 12 months, why? Because it’s not incenting performance.” You know, I just coached a company here in San Francisco, and I said, “Really, your number one issue is that you’re worried about using people, and here you are in the city that has the highest rent of anywhere in the world. With the system that you have, you’re telling your millennial employees to tell their landlord, oh yeah, I could pay an extra thousand dollars a month rent, can I give it to you in January, because that’s when I get my bonus. Oh, I always get it.” That’s what I’m saying. When I get inside of companies, I say, “Wow, that is just a beautiful vision of who you are. Isn’t that lovely? It looks so good on a t-shirt, look at that poster over there, what do you actually do?” What do you actually do right? If you say we have a culture of adults who have freedom and responsibility, but they have to ask for permission to do anything, then you don’t really. That’s the kind of stuff I do, right? I just sort of dig in it, and I open up every cupboard door.
Amantha: Yeah, I like that.
Patty: Say, “Really? About these candy bars in here. About that drawer full of chocolate, vegan.”
Amantha: Oh, that’s cool. I’ve heard you say that you’re a business person first, and an HR person second, and this is what HR people around the world need to think. I’m curious like can you take me through how do you get to know a business? Maybe even using one of the companies that you advise as an example. What are the questions that you ask? What are the things that you’re looking at?
Patty: Oh my God, I mean, I just did a group of HR people last week, or maybe it was a work of CEOs, it was a classic. CEO says, “Well, you know I like your ideas, I could be really open to it.” I’m like, “Are you about say, but my HR person?” He’s like, “Yeah.” I’m like, “Okay, but, my HR person isn’t very smart? Is that what you’re going to say?” He’s like, “Well, I’m not sure I’d say that.” I’m like, “You have someone that reports directly to you as a senior executive that you don’t think is smart? What kind of CEO are you? Second of all, what do you expect from her, I’m assuming it’s a her right?” “Well yeah, aren’t all HR people women?” “Do you talk to her about the business? About your sales cycle? About what the revenue forecast is going to be? How you’re doing your modelling versus performance, versus budget, can you read a P&L together? A profit and loss statement together? Because if you can’t, you should. You can start by going back home right now and saying, ‘Hey you know what I need to do, I need you to go spend a month with our CFO. And come back and tell me about run rate revenue is calculated.'” We don’t expect very much from each other right?
HR in particular the expectations, they’re almost nothing. You would never do that in any other part of the company. You would never say to a product person, “Tell me about when you’re going to roll that out as an initiative countrywide.” This is just silly right? How are you going know it’s a good product? You would never use any other part of the organisation and go, “Now, why is it that you do that? Oh, because everybody else does it, and this is the way we’ve always done it. Good thinking, carry on.” You know it’s just silly. I would say a couple of things. You know the important thing to do is to make sure, if you’re in HR or you have HR people reporting to you, that they are you know very qualified business people that can tell you, who your set of competitors is, how to read your profit and loss statement. What are your strengths and weaknesses is a product or a category? What the timing is? What your deliverables are? What you need to accomplish because I would tell my team, it’s our job to make sure that we’ve got all the teams in place to always be ready for whatever incredible opportunity we might have in the business.
Conversely, when I talk to CEOs, like I did a couple of weeks ago, I’m like, “Imagine what it would be like, if you had an unbelievable opportunity to succeed in front of you, and you couldn’t take it, because you had the wrong team. That’s your job.” Right? I said to them, “Because if you don’t, this opportunity that only you can see right now, when you miss it, everybody else will see it, and somebody else will take it.” That’s how it works. That’s where I get around the yes but it’s really important for me to create a company that provides career paths for people, for the rest of their working life. I’m like, “No, that’s just a lie. That’s not the truth for 65 years, so why you telling that lie still?”
No seriously, here’s my number one question when I walk into any room. A thousand CEOs, a thousand HR people, raise your hand if you’re in the job that you had when you graduated from college. Not a single hand goes up, really. Then I say, “How many of you measure and care about retention?” 999 hands go up. Does this strike you as a little odd? Call me crazy, but it doesn’t seem to make any sense. In some ways, I’m not doing anything radical at all. I’m just sort of stating the obvious. I guess that’s kind of the secret to Patty’s sauce is, I hung around engineers for so long. I just stopped being able to speak with a lot of nuance. The engineers and technical people like facts and data, and simplicity. When I stopped speaking HR speak, and I could just talk about you know, oh by the way, when you have a conflict with that person on the other team and you don’t ever resolve it, then it’s time wasting. Because now the whole team has to operate around this unresolved conflict that you have that oh by the way is nobody’s business but the two of you, so you could just fix it? Then we don’t have to deal with it anymore? Thanks.
Amantha: Yeah. Oh, I love it, very good advice.
Patty: Not brain surgery.
Amantha: Oh, I want to finish with just a few quick questions about what your currently consuming. Because I think there’s so much information out there, and I think for the average person that’s had to know, like what should I be reading, what should I be listening to. I guess to start with, what’s a great book that you’ve read, you know perhaps this year, or in the last few months?
Patty: Oh geez, I’m reading Beth Comstock’s book right now. What’s the name of it? I should have it here in front of me. I was reading a book by David Lyons that I didn’t like very much because he does a big long talk about my book, and how much, how stupid he thinks I am. I like all of Patrick Lencioni’s stuff. I think he’s really practical and pragmatic. I like Reid Hoffman’s book, Daniel Pink’s book, recent book this year is pretty interesting. I love Susan Cain’s Quiet. I think that, you know, the understanding of introverts, since I’m not one has been really helpful. I don’t find, like I said at the beginning, when you and I talked, I’m just, books aren’t always something that’s really important to me. Here’s an example. I did a podcast with Kara Swisher. It was one of the best interviews I ever had. Because she was just really clever about sort of bouncing around and getting into really good, it was good conversation. I’ve been listening to a lot of her podcasts. She just did one last week with Elon Musk, that was fascinating.
Amantha: I’ll have to check that out.
Patty: I guess I would … Yeah, here stuff is really good, she also interviewed Hillary Clinton the other day, and that was pretty interesting too. I guess I’ll tend to do that more than I will you know, sit down and read a whole business book. You read my book. You know at the end of every chapter, how I put like your side questions, and here’s five bullet points about what the chapter’s about. The reason I did that, was I pre-highlighted it for you. Because I don’t like reading business books very much. When I tell people when I’m in a conference, and they’ve given away 300 books, I’m like, “Here’s the deal, I pre-highlighted it for you. It’s not a narrative, it’s not in any order, so just flip through the end of every chapter, and go, ‘Wow, I’d be interested in how they put together their staffing strategy.'” I’m like, “Just read that chapter.” That’s all.
Amantha: You sound like me.
Patty: Podcasts tend to work for me in that way.
Amantha: What are your go to podcasts?
Patty: It kind of depends on what’s coming through in my Twitter feed to be honest with you. I like a lot of the Axios Political stuff, but you know I also like just a great story. I’m a bit of a National Public Radio addict here. Science Friday, I love listening to Science Friday, when I’m driving in the car, and finding out you know why elephants have tusks or whatever. I like doing podcasts like this. I mean, it’s fun just to have a conversation with people. I think it’s natural and more human.
Amantha: Yeah, I think so. I think so. Any newsletters that you subscribe to, that you actually look forward to receiving?
Patty: Not that I can think of right now. Nothing other than the ever all-consuming American politics these days. That’s why it’s so nice to travel.
Amantha: Yes, I can imagine. Finally, if people want to find out more about you, read your thoughts, obviously they can get powerful, which I whole heartedly recommend. It’s such a brilliant read, and a great companion to the Netflix Culture Deck, how else can people find you if they want more Patty?
Patty: I have a website PattyMcCord.com and that has all archives of all my talks, and articles, and all that other good stuff, so you can just click on there and see what I’m up to.
Amantha: Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, Patty I have loved talking to you. It’s been fascinating hearing about how you work, and about how things worked at Netflix as well. Thank you so much for your time.
Patty: Same to you, it was fun.
Amantha: Hello there, that’s it for today’s show. I hope you enjoyed my chat with Patty, and got some interesting, and useful stuff out of it. Now, before you go, you probably know what I’m about to ask you, but I will ask you anyway. If you’re enjoying How You Work, or even if you just enjoyed this episode, maybe this is the first episode you’ve listened to of the show. I would be so appreciative if you left a review in iTunes for the show, because the more people that leave reviews, the easier it is for people to find it in the apple store. Just one of those funny little things about how the algorithms work. If you would be so kind as to do that I would be so very, very grateful. On that note, that is it for today. I will see you next time, thanks for listening.
