Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility

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.

Great teams are made when every single member knows where they’re going and will do anything to get there. Great teams are not created with incentives, procedures, and perks. They are created by hiring talented people who are adults and want nothing more than to tackle a challenge, and then communicating to them, clearly and continuously, about wha

One was to conduct an exercise we called “Start, Stop, Continue” in our team meetings. In this drill, each person tells a colleague one thing they should start doing, one thing they should stop doing, and one thing they’re doing really well and should keep doing.

data informed rather than data driven.

Creating a culture is an evolutionary process.

The conventional thinking is that if you allow people to be anonymous, they will be more truthful. In my experience that’s not the case. Truthful people are truthful in everything they do. And if you don’t know who is giving you feedback, how can you put their comments into the context of the work they’re doing,

We want to treat one another well, and we think that means making one another feel good. But this desire to make people feel good is often as much a desire to make ourselves feel good as to do the right thing.

hate company politics, not just because it’s nasty but because it’s so inefficient. Think about it. If I’m going to stab someone in the back, I have to go get a knife, hide it, wait until I’m alone with that person, and catch them off guard. I’d better be sure to kill them or they’ll come back after me. It takes planning, and it’s high risk. Wouldn

what people most want from work: to be able to come in and work with the right team of people— colleagues they trust and admire—and to focus like crazy on doing a great job together.