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.

If you build an organization made up of high performers, you can eliminate most controls. The denser the talent, the greater the freedom you can offer.

This case, you’ll have noticed, is by no means unique. Throughout this book we’ve told stories about lower-level employees making multimillion-dollar financial decisions without getting approval from the boss. Outsiders are often puzzled about how this can work in a financially responsible organization. The answer is simple: it’s because of the alignment.

If your goal is to build a more inventive, fast, and flexible organization, develop a culture of freedom and responsibility by establishing the necessary conditions so you can remove these rules and processes too.

What is important is not changing the work or organizational context but reworking outdated basic premises and decision rules that are still governing our professional lives.