Here’s a great piece of audio to listen to if you work in HR.
In 1998, Patty McCord joined a new company called Netflix. Her title was chief talent officer. And over the next ten years as Netflix grew (and grew), she and CEO Reed Hastings built a new kind of workplace. They threw out all the usual rules — no more expense authorization forms or vacation requests — and focused on creating a culture of excellence. But that culture of excellence didn’t come only through hiring the right people. Patty had to get good at firing, too.
Well it’s different in every company, but there’s a baseline that says, “We make the rules and people follow them. And we’re in charge.” You know, it changed over time in my H.R. career from being, “We make the rules and people follow them,” to “We’re protecting the company from those evil employees that might sue us,” to, you know, the HR global initiative du jour to, “maybe we should make them extraordinarily happy. Let’s do ropes courses and celebrations…” Right?
Patty McChord
See the original Netflix culture deck here: https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664