With the absence of a policy, most people look around their department to understand the “soft limits” of what’s acceptable. I have always been interested in travel and before we lifted our vacation policy I already tried to take a good amount. But after we lifted the policy I started talking a lot more about those vacations to anyone who was willing to listen.

By Reed’s count, he takes six weeks of vacation a year, and from my limited experience, I would add “at least.”

Reed’s own modeling is fundamental to the success of the unlimited vacation policy throughout Netflix. If the CEO doesn’t model this, the method can’t work. Even then, Reed’s substantial vacation-taking has trickled down as intended in some areas of Netflix and not so well in others. When those leaders under Reed don’t follow his example, their employees often sound a bit like the zombies from Reed’s nightmares.

I don’t want rules that prevent employees from making good decisions in a timely way. Fowler’s review was worth hundreds of times more to both Netflix and Samsung than that TV. Nick had just five words to guide his actions: “Act in Netflix’s best interest.” That freedom enabled him to use good judgment to do what was right for the company. But freedom isn’t the only benefit of removing your expense policy. The second benefit is that the lack of process speeds everything up.

When you read about Freedom and Responsibility at Netflix, it’s easy to get lost in the lovely idea of Freedom without properly considering the accompanying weight of Responsibility. Being the informed captain and signing off on your own contracts is a case in point. Although Reed certainly doesn’t intend to induce fear and trembling in his workforce, part of the reason that F&R works so well is because people do feel the burden of the responsibility that comes with the freedom and make extra efforts accordingly.

We’ve looked at over a dozen policies and processes that most companies have but that we don’t have at Netflix. These include:

Vacation Policies

Decision-Making Approvals

Expense Policies

Performance Improvement Plans

Approval Processes

Raise Pools

Key Performance

Indicators Management by Objective

Travel Policies

Decision Making by Committee

Contract Sign-Offs

Salary Bands

Pay Grades

Pay-Per-Performance Bonuses

These are all ways of controlling people rather than inspiring them. It’s not easy to avoid chaos and anarchy as you remove these controls, but if you develop every employee’s sense of self-discipline and responsibility, help them develop enough knowledge to make good decisions, and develop a feedback culture to stimulate learning, you’ll be amazed at how effective your organization can be.