It was not obvious at the time, even to me, but we had one thing that Blockbuster did not: a culture that valued people over process, emphasized innovation over efficiency, and had very few controls. Our culture, which focused on achieving top performance with talent density and leading employees with context not control, has allowed us to continually grow and change as the world, and our members’ needs, have likewise morphed around us. Netflix is different. We have a culture where No Rules Rules.

The rules-and-process approach has been the primary way of coordinating group behavior for centuries. But it isn’t the only way, and it isn’t only Netflix using a different method.

Southwest has a greater number of unionized employees than any other airline, yet it also has better employee relations than any other airline. Why isn't that a contradiction? It turns out that unions love Southwest because, unlike other airlines, it has never had a layoff. Southwest didn't expand as much as traditional airlines did during good times, which means that it doesn't need to cut back quite so much during bad times. This policy is designed to maintain good employee relationships, and it is these good relationships that allow Southwest to include the team-late provision in employment contracts, as well as put the phrase "and everything else" into all of Southwest's job descriptions. Whatever needs doing, you simply do it, without having to locate, for instance, a qualified master electrician to screw in a light bulb. And this chain of interlocking trade-offs — expansion limits to preserve job stability in return for flexibility in job descriptions — all leads directly to faster turnaround, the key to Southwest's success.

Southwest has a greater number of unionized employees than any other airline, yet it also has better employee relations than any other airline. Why isn't that a contradiction? It turns out that unions love Southwest because, unlike other airlines, it has never had a layoff. Southwest didn't expand as much as traditional airlines did during good times, which means that it doesn't need to cut back quite so much during bad times. This policy is designed to maintain good employee relationships, and it is these good relationships that allow Southwest to include the team-late provision in employment contracts, as well as put the phrase "and everything else" into all of Southwest's job descriptions. Whatever needs doing, you simply do it, without having to locate, for instance, a qualified master electrician to screw in a light bulb. And this chain of interlocking trade-offs — expansion limits to preserve job stability in return for flexibility in job descriptions — all leads directly to faster turnaround, the key to Southwest's success.

Having a rule means not having to decide at every meal. The executions path is short, and less error prone.

In a quirk of psychology, people typically don’t argue with your personal rules. They just accept them as features of who you are. People question decisions, but they respect rules.

Kahneman told me his favourite rule was never to say yes to a request on the phone. He knows that he wants people to like him, so he wants to say yes in the moment, but after filling up his schedule with things that didn’t make him happy, he decided to be more vigilant about what he agrees to and why.