Corporate manifestos on Culture usually come in 2 forms: either filled with HR jargon or sounding like an advertisement. What impresses me about Netflix's manifesto on culture is it steers clear of both and actually, reads like a leadership how-to guide.
That made me think very differently about corporate culture. Culture indeed is a how-to of conduct at a particular workplace. While staying grounded and avoiding the cliches Netflix has created a manual on what to expect while working with them. Here are some highlights that fascinated me:
Guidance about dilemmas in decision making:
The document clarifies what to choose when faced with a dilemma. So that there is no ambiguity. For example, Long term over the short term; root cause over symptoms; intuition supported with data.
One aspect that is consistent in this manifesto is the lengths to which Netflix has gone to create clarity about what they are saying. At times it even lays down internal policies like on vacation or taking gifts.
Strategies to deal with problem situations:
The manifesto not only talks about desirable behaviors but also how to navigate problem situations faced in an effort to embody these behaviors. It talks about "no bell curve" or "no cutting the bottom 10%" for performance appraisals. And also strategies like the "keeper test" when judging performance vs a set of rigidly applied rules. Also, it calls out the importance of collaboration, sharing, no-politics & openness to create a dream team and to be intolerant towards "brilliant jerks".
Putting meat behind soft topics:
Most companies talk about aspects like innovation, empathy, integrity, passion, etc as desirable traits. Netflix goes one step further and details out what these aspects mean for them leaving no ambiguity or subjectiveness. For example on integrity "You only say things about fellow employees that you say to their face" is spelled out clearly. Or on Innovation - "You re-conceptualize issues to discover solutions to hard problems"
Clarity on what "People over process" means:
Most organizations talk about how their culture puts people over process. I have seldom seen it in practice. Netflix's manifesto on culture goes to great lengths to clarify what it means. Examples:
"There are virtually no spending controls and few contract signing controls. Each employee is expected to seek advice and perspective as appropriate. “Use good judgment” is our core precept.
Our policy for travel, entertainment, gifts, and other expenses is 5 words long: “act in Netflix’s best interest.
Our parental leave policy is: “take care of your baby and yourself.” New parents generally take 4-8 months."
On what a leader's job is:
In a lengthy section titled "Context not control" the manifesto talks about how a leader's job is set a clear context and leave the actual work to the employees and to interfere only when asked for. Talking about how Steve Job's micromanagement made Apple products great the manifesto states "We do not emulate these top-down models because we believe we are most effective and innovative when employees throughout the company make and own decisions.". That I am sure took some guts.
While it seems to borrow heavily from the agile manifesto in spirit, the only critique I might have is that it doesn't say much about their end customer. There is only one sentence about the customer that too in the negative under the section "Highly aligned loosely coupled" (Agile Manifesto language?).
As a paying customer, I would have loved to know that Netflix cares about its customers enough to ask their employees to care for them.
While the manifesto is unambiguous, steers away from jargon, and at times reads like an internal policy document, the proof is in how effectively Netflix is able to create such a culture on the ground.
As the manifesto itself claims, the proof of a company's values is ".... shown by who gets rewarded or let go."
The whole manifesto can be read here
Comentários