data informed rather than data driven.

When I talked with my former VP of HR Jessica Neal about this, she said a great thing about what a company’s culture should be: “Culture is the strategy of how you work. And if people believe it is a strategy and that it is important, they will help you think about it deeply and try things.”

A company’s job isn’t to empower people; it’s to remind people that they walk in the door with power and to create the conditions for them to exercise it. Do that, and you will be astonished by the great work they will do for you.

Team Coaches Are the Model, Not Guidance Counselors, Professors, or Entertainers

identifying the behaviors that you would like to see become consistent practices and then instilling the discipline of actually doing them.

As for empowerment, I simply hate that word. The idea is well intentioned, but the truth is that there is so much concern about empowering people only because the prevailing way of managing them takes their power away.

You’ve got to constantly monitor the message and update it. This is a job that you should be doing forever.

it’s a misconception that more people make better stuff. With our teams at Pure, and all around Silicon Valley, I could see the power of small, unencumbered teams.

When leaders not only are open to being wrong but also readily admit it—as Reed did that day, and regularly did—and when they do so publicly, they send a powerful message to their teams: Please speak up!