Book Review: 3000 word write-up at the end of the semester. This is a book report on the Netflix (No Rules Rules - Reed Hasting) book. In this write-up, you will review the basic ideas in the book for...

Running Head: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT                        1
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT                                14
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
BOOK REVIEW
Table of Contents
Introduction to the Book    3
About Reed Hastings    4
About Erin Meyer    4
Review of the Basic Ideas    5
My Learnings from the Course    7
Combining the Insights I gained from My Course with My Research    8
Conclusion    10
Reflection of Why This Book is Useful for Business Students    11
References    13
Introduction to the Book
The book is about how Netflix born and created into world leader in the field of digital entertainer by Reed Hastings. This book proves to be strongest collaboration between Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer. Some people looked it with great suspect but it reflected that something is working correctly with the company. They represented a case study that how a company adopted cultures and converted it into international context.
Erin through a series on interviews translated cultural principles into cases and studied why and how they contribute to the company’s success. The book consists of mainly nine structured chapters, each one acting as a dot and reading the whole book is like connecting those dots. The experience of Hastings and the errors made by him has wonderful depiction to decorate the learning experience.
As the company grew the rules also grows but instead more freedom was given to the employees by the owner (Hastings & Meyer, 2020). The employees are more focus on practicing radical condor rather pleasing their superiors. Instead of hard work done, performance is more important and looked after aspect in Netflix. The salary package enjoyed by the employees in the company is at par with the market rates and they never look for approval to go ahead with their task. The best talent is always welcome with newer ideas.
Feedback holds an important place as it is considered an important factor for success. The concept of circle of feedback developed in Netflix and its implementation in the workplace educate about its positive effects. This concept is born out of personal experience of Reed Hastings. The troubles he faced in personal life due to business of his schedules let him understand the value of accepting criticism. The critical connection of corporate culture with global culture and deriving the success out of it is a necessary read.
About Reed Hastings
Reed Hastings, an American businessperson, was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 8, 1960, to Joan and Wilmot Hastings. He is known as a co-founder of Netflix in 1997. The company is a revolution in the digital world. It develops various digital content, licenses and delivers entertainment in various genres and languages to 200 million customers in 190 countries. He own 1% of Netflix. Hastings expanded Netflix through movie studio partnerships and aggressive marketing campaigns, emphasizing Netflix’s catalog of indie films, documentaries and other movies not easily available through other services.
He founded Pure Software in 1991, whose main purpose was to create tools for software developers. Pure was acquired by Rational Softwares in 1997. Hastings sits on a number of boards and non-profit organizations. A former member of the California State Board of Education, he is an advocate for education reform through charter schools from 2000 to 2004. He is on the board of several educational organizations, including DreamBox Learning, KIPP and Pahara. He is also a board member of Facebook and was on the board of Microsoft from 2007 to 2012 (Forbes, 2021). He was the Keynote Speaker at the 2014 Annual CA Charter Schools Conference.
About Erin Meyer
Erin Meyer is an American author and a professor in a famous and reputed international business school INSEAD. She is a senior affiliate professor in the Organizational Behavior department. She is best known for her book The Culture Map: Breaking through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business a study that analyzes how national cultural differences affects business. Her work focuses on how the world’s most successful managers navigate the complexities of cultural differences in a global environment.
In the book, No rules rule she connected local adaptation with Netflix beautifully. Meyer’s article “Getting to Si, Ja, Oui, Hai and Da” was the most read article in the Harvard Business Review in 2015. In 2017, she was awarded as most influential thinker by HR magazine. Thousands of executives from five continents were taught by Erin to decode cross-cultural complexities affecting their success and to work more effectively across these differences. Erin frequently publishes in Harvard Business Review. In 2019, Erin was listed by the Thinkers50 for the second time as one of the fifty most impactful business writers globally (Thinkers50, 2021). In 2018, she was selected by HR magazines as one of the top 30 most influential HR thinkers of the year.
Review of the Basic Ideas
The book also focus on how amazing the office of Netflix in terms of working environment and employees. The author stressed on quality of teams made up of employees who are good to work with. They are passionate, creative and productive. They look after mistakes as improvement factors and contribute effectively to the team. Candid feedback is most talked about part in it. Regular feedback sessions helps to encourage employees and stress on all facets of teams performance (Hastings & Meyer, 2020).
The density of talent ensured that learning is keep going on and faster accomplishments can be achieved. This helped in increasing the motivation and satisfaction among them. Meyers stated in book that performance is contagious. If there are top performers then others will become consistent too to be high performers. Employees are trained to take feedback positively. A circle of feedback concept is introduced and practiced in Netflix.
Every employee is made to participate in circle within six to twelve months. These are not considered as performance reviews. Managers ask for more feedback and culture does not punish anyone rather creates a powerful loop (Hastings & Meyer, 2020). The culture of freedom and responsibility also exists in company. There are fewer controls for employees. They can design their own travel expenses without asking anyone. The concept of “command and control” applies to the adequate quality people and disincentives the best few. It leads to the concept of “Lead with Context, not control“,...