Reed Hastings Quotes

Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Fear no more the frown o' the great; Thou art past the tyrant's stroke: Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak: The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust. Fear no more the lightning-flash, Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone; Fear not slander, censure rash; Thou hast finished joy and moan; All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee, and come to dust. No exorciser harm thee! Nor no witchcraft charm thee! Ghost unlaid forbear thee! Nothing ill come near thee! Quiet consummation have; And renownéd be thy grave!

Lead with context, not control,” and coaching your employees using such guidelines as, “Don’t seek to please your boss.

If you give employees more freedom instead of developing processes to prevent them from exercising their own judgment, they will make better decisions and it’s easier to hold them accountable.

it made our workforce smarter. When you give low-level employees access to information that is generally reserved for high-level executives, they get more done on their own. They work faster without stopping to ask for information and approval. They make better decisions without needing input from the top.

If you have a team of five stunning employees and two adequate ones, the adequate ones will sap managers’ energy, so they have less time for the top performers, reduce the quality of group discussions, lowering the team’s overall IQ, force others to develop ways to work around them, reducing efficiency, drive staff who seek excellence to quit, and show the team you accept mediocrity, thus multiplying the problem.

even when other team members were exceptionally talented and intelligent, one individual’s bad behavior brought down the effectiveness of the entire team. In dozens of trials, conducted over month-long periods, groups with one underperformer did worse than other teams by a whopping 30 to 40 percent.

HIGH PERFORMANCE + SELFLESS CANDOR = EXTREMELY HIGH PERFORMANCE

Elon Musk (of Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity), Jeff Bezos (of Amazon), and Reed Hastings (of Netflix) are other great shapers from the business world. In philanthropy, Muhammad Yunus (of Grameen), Geoffrey Canada (of Harlem Children’s Zone), and Wendy Kopp (of Teach for America) come to mind; and in government, Winston Churchill, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Lee Kuan Yew, and Deng Xiaoping. Bill Gates has been a shaper in both business and philanthropy, as was Andrew Carnegie. Mike Bloomberg has been a shaper in business, philanthropy, and government. Einstein, Freud, Darwin, and Newton were giant shapers in the sciences. Christ, Muhammad, and the Buddha were religious shapers. They all had original visions and successfully built them out.

The Fearless Organization, she explains that if you want to encourage innovation, you should develop an environment where people feel safe to dream, speak up, and take risks. The safer the atmosphere, the more innovation you will have.

Humility is important in a leader and role model. When you succeed, speak about it softly or let others mention it for you. But when you make a mistake say it clearly and loudly, so that everyone can learn and profit from your errors. In other words, “Whisper wins and shout mistakes.

TALENT DENSITY: TALENTED PEOPLE MAKE ONE ANOTHER MORE EFFECTIVE

ich kann nicht festhalten, aber noch weniger kann ich dich loslassen. Wieso hast du mich halb hiergelassen und halb mitgenommen?

Netflix treats employees like adults who can handle difficult information and I love that. This creates enormous feelings of commitment and buy-in from employees.

Then I spoke with proven shapers I knew—Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Reed Hastings, Muhammad Yunus, Geoffrey Canada, Jack Dorsey (of Twitter), David Kelley (of IDEO), and more. They had all visualized remarkable concepts and built organizations to actualize them, and done that repeatedly and over long periods of time. I asked them to take an hour’s worth of personality assessments to discover their values, abilities, and approaches. While not perfect, these assessments have been invaluable. (In fact, I have been adapting and refining them to help us in our recruiting and management.) The answers these shapers provided to the standardized questions gave me objective and statistically measurable evidence about their similarities and differences. It turns out they have a lot in common. They are all independent thinkers who do not let anything or anyone stand in the way of achieving their audacious goals. They have very strong mental maps of how things should be done, and at the same time a willingness to test those mental maps in the world of reality and change the ways they do things to make them work better. They are extremely resilient, because their need to achieve what they envision is stronger than the pain they experience as they struggle to achieve it. Perhaps most interesting, they have a wider range of vision than most people, either because they have that vision themselves or because they know how to get it from others who can see what they can’t. All are able to see both big pictures and granular details (and levels in between) and synthesize the perspectives they gain at those different levels, whereas most people see just one or the other. They are simultaneously creative, systematic, and practical. They are assertive and open-minded at the same time. Above all, they are passionate about what they are doing, intolerant of people who work for them who aren’t excellent at what they do, and want to have a big, beneficial impact on the world.

In a fast and innovative company, ownership of critical, big-ticket decisions should be dispersed across the workforce at all different levels, not allocated according to hierarchical status.

above all you have to be humble, you have to be curious, and you have to remember to listen before you speak and to learn before you teach. With this approach, you can’t help but become more effective every day in this ever-fascinating multicultural world.

My goal was to make employees feel like owners and, in turn, to increase the amount of responsibility they took for the company’s success. However, opening company secrets to employees had another outcome: it made our workforce smarter.

Farm for dissent,” or “socialize” the idea. For a big idea, test it out. As the informed captain, make your bet. If it succeeds, celebrate. If it fails, sunshine it.

Du hast mir mal gesagt, nach dem Regen folgt immer Sonnenschein. Aber was mache ich, wenn der Regen nicht aufhört? Oh, ich weiß was du sagen würdest: Dann stell dich gefälligst rein! Tanzen kannst du überall.

I recommend instead focusing first on something much more difficult: getting employees to give candid feedback to the boss. This can be accompanied by boss-to-employee feedback. But it’s when employees begin providing truthful feedback to their leaders that the big benefits of candor really take off.

This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life. This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new... Thy infinite gifts come to me only on those very small hand of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.

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.

that—no matter where you come from—when it comes to working across cultural differences, talk, talk, talk.

In 2007, Leslie Kilgore coined the expression “Lead with context, not control

If you’re hiring someone for an operational position, say window washer, ice-cream scooper, or driver, the best employee might deliver double the value of the average.

The more you and others in your company respond to all candid moments with belonging cues, the more courageous people will be in their candor.

Studies show that well over half the population will readily cheat the system to get more for themselves if they think they won’t be caught.

But when one employee abuses your trust, deal with the individual case and double your commitment to continue transparency with the others. Do not punish the majority for the poor behavior of a few.

This is the nub of F&R. If your people choose to abuse the freedom you give them, you need to fire them and fire them loudly, so others understand the ramifications. Without this, freedom doesn’t work.

If you trust your people to handle appropriately sensitive information, the trust you demonstrate will instigate feelings of responsibility and your employees will show you just how trustworthy they are.

At Netflix, we emphasize that it’s fine to disagree with your manager and to implement an idea she dislikes. We don’t want people putting aside a great idea because the manager doesn’t see how great it is.

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.

if you hire a high-performing chef and give her free range to cook what she wants, but you haven’t shared that your family hates salt and that any salad dressing with sugar will be rejected by all, it’s likely your household of fusspots won’t like the meal delivered to their plates. In this case, it’s not your chef’s fault. It’s yours. You hired the right person, but you didn’t provide enough context. You gave your cook freedom, but you and your chef were not aligned.

That’s when we added a new element to our culture. We now say that it is disloyal to Netflix when you disagree with an idea and do not express that disagreement. By withholding your opinion, you are implicitly choosing to not help the company.

A fast and innovative workplace is made up of what we call “stunning colleagues”—highly talented people, of diverse backgrounds and perspectives, who are exceptionally creative, accomplish significant amounts of important work, and collaborate effectively.

Now Larry encourages his own staff to take those calls from the recruiters: “But I also don’t wait for them to come to me. If I see someone could make more money somewhere else, I give them the raise right away.” To retain your top employees, it’s always better to give them the raise before they get the offers.

Spinning the truth is one of the most common ways leaders erode trust. I can’t say this clearly enough: don’t do this. Your people are not stupid. When you try to spin them, they see it, and it makes you look like a fraud. Speak plainly, without trying to make bad situations seem good, and your employees will learn you tell the truth.

WHEN ONE OF YOUR PEOPLE DOES SOMETHING DUMB DON’T BLAME THEM. INSTEAD ASK YOURSELF WHAT CONTEXT YOU FAILED TO SET. ARE YOU ARTICULATE AND INSPIRING ENOUGH IN EXPRESSING YOUR GOALS AND STRATEGY? HAVE YOU CLEARLY EXPLAINED ALL THE ASSUMPTIONS AND RISKS THAT WILL HELP YOUR TEAM TO MAKE GOOD DECISIONS? ARE YOU AND YOUR EMPLOYEES HIGHLY ALIGNED ON VISION AND OBJECTIVES?

symphony isn’t what you’re going for. Leave the conductor and the sheet music behind. Build a jazz band instead. Jazz emphasizes individual spontaneity. The musicians know the overall structure of the song but have the freedom to improvise, riffing off one another other, creating incredible music. Of course, you can’t just remove the rules and processes, tell your team to be a jazz band, and expect it to be so. Without the right conditions, chaos will ensue. But now, after reading this book, you have a map. Once you begin to hear the music, keep focused. Culture isn’t something you can build up and then ignore. At Netflix, we are constantly debating our culture and expecting it will continually evolve. To build a team that is innovative, fast, and flexible, keep things a little bit loose. Welcome constant change. Operate a little closer toward the edge of chaos. Don’t provide a musical score and build a symphonic orchestra. Work on creating those jazz conditions and hire the type of employees who long to be part of an improvisational band. When it all comes together, the music is beautiful.

Despite being a nonprofit, we have been able to build a team that rivals those of the most resource-rich tech companies. Hundreds of incredibly talented people have committed a major part of their careers to be part of the Khan Academy team, often taking considerable pay cuts to do so. Thousands of volunteers all over the world have now translated Khan Academy into over fifty languages. Inspirational leaders like Bill Gates, Reed Hastings, and Elon Musk have become some of our biggest supporters and advocates. This journey seems so serendipitous that it has become something of an inside joke among the Khan Academy team that perhaps benevolent aliens are helping us so that, through education, we can prepare humanity for first contact.

There is one Netflix guideline that, if practiced religiously, would force everyone to be either radically candid or radically quiet: “Only say about someone what you will say to their face.” The less we talk about people behind their backs, the more we eliminate the gossip that creates inefficiency and bad feelings—and the more we can wash our hands of the unpleasantness generally referred to as “office politics.

PIPs are of course expensive. If you put someone on a four-month PIP, that’s four months you have to pay an underperformer and countless hours spent by the line manager and HR enforcing and documenting the process. Instead of pouring that capital into a prolonged PIP, give it to the employee in a nice, big, up-front severance package, tell him you’re sorry it didn’t work out, and wish him well in his next adventure.

In many companies in the US, when a manager decides to let go of someone, he is required to put in place a process called a performance improvement plan (PIP). This means that the manager documents weekly discussions with the employee over a period of months, demonstrating in writing that the employee has not managed to succeed despite feedback. PIPs rarely help employees improve and they delay the firing by many weeks.

We try to apply the Keeper Test to everyone, including ourselves. Would the company be better off with someone else in my role? The goal is to remove any shame for anyone let go from Netflix. Think of an Olympic team sport like hockey. To get cut from the team is very disappointing, but the person is admired for having had the guts and skill to make the squad in the first place. When someone is let go at Netflix, we hope for the same. We all stay friends and there is no shame.

She found a way to calculate how much money his moodiness was costing the business. She spoke to him in his own financial language, adding a shot of her infectious humor to the communication, and Barry was moved. He went back to his team, told them about the feedback he’d received, and asked them to call him out when his mood was influencing their actions. The results were remarkable. In the subsequent weeks and months, many on the finance team spoke to me and Patty about the positive change in Barry’s leadership.

Brian Chesky of Airbnb defines culture in a simple and concise way: “a shared way of doing things.” Clearly defining the way an organization does things matters, because blitzscaling requires aggressive, focused action, and unclear, hazy cultures get in the way of actually implementing strategy. Netflix cofounder and CEO Reed Hastings told me, “Weak cultures are diffuse; people act differently, and don’t understand each other, and it becomes political.” Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg have done many wonderful things at Facebook, and one of them is building a unified culture that is devoted to aggressive experimentation and data-driven decision making, as summarized by Mark’s original motto “Move fast and break things.” Facebook’s culture helps employees understand that they shouldn’t be afraid to try things that might fail. This allows Facebook to move faster, and to move on from failed experiments quickly. Imagine if someone asked a random employee from your start-up the following questions: What is your organization trying to do? How are you trying to achieve those goals? What acceptable risks are you incurring to achieve those goals more quickly? When you have to trade off certain values, which ones take priority? What kind of behavior do you hire, promote, or fire for?

The best entrepreneurs don’t just follow Moore’s Law; they anticipate it. Consider Reed Hastings, the cofounder and CEO of Netflix. When he started Netflix, his long-term vision was to provide television on demand, delivered via the Internet. But back in 1997, the technology simply wasn’t ready for his vision—remember, this was during the era of dial-up Internet access. One hour of high-definition video requires transmitting 40 GB of compressed data (over 400 GB without compression). A standard 28.8K modem from that era would have taken over four months to transmit a single episode of Stranger Things. However, there was a technological innovation that would allow Netflix to get partway to Hastings’s ultimate vision—the DVD. Hastings realized that movie DVDs, then selling for around $ 20, were both compact and durable. This made them perfect for running a movie-rental-by-mail business. Hastings has said that he got the idea from a computer science class in which one of the assignments was to calculate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of backup tapes driving across the country! This was truly a case of technological innovation enabling business model innovation. Blockbuster Video had built a successful business around buying VHS tapes for around $ 100 and renting them out from physical stores, but the bulky, expensive, fragile tapes would never have supported a rental-by-mail business.

The fall of 2017, one of our leaders, who unbeknownst to us, struggled with alcohol addiction and fell off the wagon on a business trip. He immediately entered rehab. What should we tell his staff? His boss believed that we should follow the Netflix culture and tell everyone the truth. Human Resources insisted that he should have the right to choose what he shared about his personal challenges. In this case, I agreed with HR. When it comes to personal struggles, an individual’s right to privacy trumps an organization’s desire for transparency. Here we didn’t take the most transparent route. But we didn’t spin either. We told everyone that the guy had taken two weeks off for personal reasons. It was up to him to share more details if he chose.

Only say about someone what you will say to their face.

Reed doesn’t pay much attention to turnover rate, believing that replacement costs are not as important as ensuring the right person is in every position.

Если весь коллектив состоит из блестящих специалистов, дисциплинарный аппарат можно свести к минимуму. Чем выше концентрация талантов, тем большую свободу им можно предоставить.

Pero cuando se comete un error, hay que decirlo alto y claro para que todo el mundo pueda aprender y sacar provecho de ello. En otras palabras: «Susurrar las victorias y gritar los errores».

Cuando se cuenta con los mejores empleados del mercado y se ha instituido una cultura de las críticas sinceras, compartir secretos de empresa acentúa los sentimientos de responsabilidad y compromiso entre la plantilla. Si se confía en que la gente tratará adecuadamente la información delicada, dicha confianza fomentará sentimientos de responsabilidad y los empleados demostrarán lo dignos de confianza que son.

Cuando el jefe deja de aprobar decisiones, toda la empresa gana rapidez y la innovación aumenta.

En un entorno productivo, pagar los salarios máximos del mercado es lo más rentable a largo plazo. Es mejor tener unos salarios un poco más altos de lo necesario, conceder un aumento antes de que el empleado lo pida o incrementarlo antes de que este empiece a buscar otro trabajo, a fin de atraer y retener a los mejores talentos del mercado año tras año. Es mucho más costoso perder personal y reclutar a sustitutos que pagar más desde el principio.

Una empresa adaptable debería parecerse a un árbol y no a una pirámide.

«Si quieres construir un barco, no empieces por buscar madera, cortar tablas o distribuir el trabajo. Despierta primero en los hombres y mujeres el anhelo del mar libre y ancho».

but a great writer of software code is worth ten thousand times the price of an average software writer.

Con culturas menos directas, hay que incrementar las críticas formales

three Emmys for our original kids shows Alexa and Katie, Fuller House, and A Series of Unfortunate Events.

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.

But Reed doesn’t pay much attention to turnover rate, believing that replacement costs are not as important as ensuring the right person is in every position.

The less we talk about people behind their backs, the more we eliminate the gossip that creates inefficiency and bad feelings

We’ve been against performance reviews from the beginning. The first problem is that the feedback goes only one way—downward. The second difficulty is that with a performance review you get feedback from only one person—your boss.

The third issue is that companies usually base performance reviews on annual goals. But employees and their managers don’t set annual goals or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) at Netflix.

But if Netflix wasn’t a family, what were we? A group of individuals looking out for ourselves? That definitely wasn’t what we were going for. After a lot of discussion Patty suggested that we think of Netflix as a professional sports team.

We learned that a company with really dense talent is a company everyone wants to work for. High performers especially thrive in environments where the overall talent density is high.

stunning colleagues”—highly talented people, of diverse backgrounds and perspectives, who are exceptionally creative, accomplish significant amounts of important work, and collaborate effectively.

The Netflix culture has great ideals but sometimes the gap between the ideals and practice is big, and what should bridge that gap is leadership. When leaders don’t set a good example … I guess I’m what happens.

Lead with context, not control

(1) always act in the best interests of the company, (2) never do anything that makes it harder for others to achieve their goals, (3) do whatever you can to achieve your own goals.

Freedom is not the opposite of accountability, as I’d previously considered. Instead, it is a path toward it.

SPEND COMPANY MONEY AS IF IT WERE YOUR OWN

The 4As are as follows: Aim to assist Actionable Appreciate Accept or decline Plus one makes 5: Adapt—your delivery and your reaction to the culture you’re working with to get the results that you need.

you can implement a culture of freedom and responsibility, choosing speed and flexibility, and offering more freedom to your employees.

Jazz emphasizes individual spontaneity. The musicians know the overall structure of the song but have the freedom to improvise, riffing off one another other, creating incredible music.

Build up talent density. At most companies, policies and control processes are put in place to deal with employees who exhibit sloppy, unprofessional, or irresponsible behavior. But if you avoid or move out these people, you don’t need the 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.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Si se otorga más libertad a los empleados en lugar de desarrollar procesos que les impidan aplicar su criterio, tomarán mejores decisiones y será más fácil que asuman responsabilidades

But it’s when employees begin providing truthful feedback to their leaders that the big benefits of candor really take off.

Beyond that, I don’t buy the idea that if you dangle cash in front of your high-performing employees, they try harder. High performers naturally want to succeed and will devote all resources toward doing so whether they have a bonus hanging in front of their nose or not. I love this quote from former chief executive of Deutsche Bank John Cryan: “I have no idea why I was offered a contract with a bonus in it because I promise you I will not work any harder or any less hard in any year, in any day because someone is going to pay me more or less.” Any executive worth her paycheck would say the same.

When I started at Netflix, Jack explained to me that I should consider I’d been handed a stack of chips. I could place them on whatever bets I believed in. I’d need to work hard and think carefully to ensure I made the best bets I could, and he’d show me how. Some bets would fail, and some would succeed. My performance would ultimately be judged, not on whether any individual bet failed, but on my overall ability to use those chips to move the business forward. Jack made it clear that at Netflix you don’t lose your job because you make a bet that doesn’t work out. Instead you lose your job for not using your chips to make big things happen or for showing consistently poor judgment over time.

The culture at Netflix had been sending the message to our people that, despite all our talk about candor, differences of opinion were not always welcome. That’s when we added a new element to our culture. We now say that it is disloyal to Netflix when you disagree with an idea and do not express that disagreement. By withholding your opinion, you are implicitly choosing to not help the company.

One day our General Counsel went to Leslie and said: “You didn’t sign this huge contract with Disney! Why is Camille’s name on it?” Leslie responded: The person who is living and breathing the contract needs to be the person who owns and signs the contract, not a head of a function or a VP. That takes responsibility of the project away from the person who should be responsible. Obviously, I look at those contracts too. But Camille is proud of what she accomplished. This is her thing, not mine. She is psychologically invested, and I want to keep her that way. I’m not going to take ownership away from her by putting my name on the deal. Leslie was right, and we follow her example across Netflix today. At Netflix you don’t need management to sign off for anything. If you’re the informed captain, take ownership—sign the document yourself.

To achieve the highest level of talent density you have to be prepared to make tough calls. If you’re serious about talent density, you have to get in the habit of doing something a lot harder: firing a good employee when you think you can get a great one. One of the reasons this is so difficult in many companies is because business leaders are continually telling their employees, “We are a family.” But a high-talent-density work environment is not a family.

I just watched Bull Durham with my kids. On a pro baseball team, the players have great relationships. These players are really close. They support one another. They celebrate together, console one another, and know each other’s plays so well that they can move as one without speaking. But they are not a family. The coach swaps and trades players in and out throughout the year in order to make sure they always have the best player in every position. Patty was right. At Netflix, I want each manager to run her department like the best professional teams, working to create strong feelings of commitment, cohesion, and camaraderie, while continually making tough decisions to ensure the best player is manning each post.

On a high-performing team, collaboration and trust work well because all the members are exceptionally skilled both at what they do and at working well with others. For an individual to be deemed excellent she can’t just be amazing at the game; she has to be selfless and put the team before her own ego. She has to know when to pass the ball, how to help her teammates thrive, and recognize that the only way to win is for the team to win together. This is exactly the type of culture we were going for at Netflix.

Our mantra is that employees don’t need the boss’s approval to move forward (but they should let the boss know what’s going on). If Sheila comes to you with a proposal you think is going to fail, you need to remind yourself why Sheila is working for you and why you paid top of the market to get her. Ask yourself these four questions: Is Sheila a stunning employee? Do you believe she has good judgment? Do you think she has the ability to make a positive impact? Is she good enough to be on your team? If you answer NO to any of these questions, you should get rid of her (see the next chapter where we’ll learn that “adequate performance gets a generous severance”). But if your answer is yes, step aside and let her decide for herself. When the boss steps out of the role of “decision approver,” the entire business speeds up and innovation increases.

When you sunshine your failed bets, everyone wins. You win because people learn they can trust you to tell the truth and to take responsibility for your actions. The team wins because it learns from the lessons that came out of the project. And the company wins because everyone sees clearly that failed bets are an inherent part of an innovative success wheel. We shouldn’t be afraid of our failures. We should embrace them.

When the embarrassing mistake is a big one, the temptation to distance yourself from it is great. This is not recommended at Netflix. To survive a big mistake, you must lean all the more into the sunshine. Talk openly about it and you will be forgiven, at least the first few times. But if you brush your mistakes under the rug or keep making them (which you’re more likely to do if you’re in denial about them), the end result will be much more serious.

Team members are playing to stay on the team with every game. For people who value job security over winning championships, Netflix is not the right choice, and we try to be clear and nonjudgmental about that. But for those who value being on winning teams, our culture provides a great opportunity.

IF A PERSON ON YOUR TEAM WERE TO QUIT TOMORROW, WOULD YOU TRY TO CHANGE THEIR MIND? OR WOULD YOU ACCEPT THEIR RESIGNATION, PERHAPS WITH A LITTLE RELIEF? IF THE LATTER, YOU SHOULD GIVE THEM A SEVERANCE PACKAGE NOW, AND LOOK FOR A STAR, SOMEONE YOU WOULD FIGHT TO KEEP.

That said, since our performance bar is so high, it seems only fair that, if we take away people’s jobs, we should give them enough money to get started on their next projects. We give everyone we dismiss a big severance—enough to take care of themselves and their families until they move on to another job. Each time we let go of someone, we offer several months’ salary (from four months for an individual contributor to nine months for a vice president). That’s why we say: ADEQUATE PERFORMANCE GETS A GENEROUS SEVERANCE

Rank-and-yank or “you must let go of X percent of your people” is just the type of rule-based process that we try to avoid. More important, these methods get managers to let go of mediocre employees, but they kill teamwork at the same time. I want our high-performing employees to compete against Netflix’s competitors, not one another.

On the contrary, the more excellence we have on the team, the more we accomplish. The more we accomplish, the more we grow. The more we grow, the more positions we add to our roster. The more positions we add, the more space there is for high-performing talent.

We’ve been against performance reviews from the beginning. The first problem is that the feedback goes only one way—downward. The second difficulty is that with a performance review you get feedback from only one person—your boss. This is in direct opposition to our “don’t seek to please your boss” vibe. I want people to receive feedback not just from their direct managers but from anyone who has feedback to provide. The third issue is that companies usually base performance reviews on annual goals. But employees and their managers don’t set annual goals or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) at Netflix. Likewise, many companies use performance reviews to determine pay raises, but at Netflix we base salaries on the market, not performance.

We now do the 360 written feedback every year, asking each person to sign their comments. We no longer have employees rate each other on a scale of 1 to 5, since we don’t link the process to raises, promotions, or firings. The goal is to help everyone get better, not to categorize them into boxes. The other big improvement is that each person can now give feedback to as many colleagues as they choose at any level in the organization—not just direct reports, line managers, or a few teammates who have invited input. Most people at Netflix provide feedback for at least ten colleagues, but thirty or forty is common. I received comments from seventy-one people on my 2018 report.

A 360 written report is a good mechanism for annual feedback. But avoid anonymity and numeric ratings, don’t link results to raises or promotions, and open up comments to anyone who is ready to give them. Live 360 dinners are another effective process. Set aside several hours away from the office. Give clear instructions, follow the 4A feedback guidelines, and use the Start, Stop, Continue method with roughly 25 percent positive, 75 percent developmental—all actionable and no fluff.

And make confession unto Him. — Josh. 7 : 19. OUR Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for keeping guard over us during the night. We laid us down and slept; we awakened because Thou didst sustain us. Thou hast opened to us the gateway of this new day and set before us open doors of fresh opportunity and privilege. As we go forth to new duties and responsibilities, we pray for Thy presence to go with us. Strengthen us in our weakness, guide us in our ignorance, and inspire us both to will and to do according to Thy good pleasure. Enable us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto Thee, which is our reasonable service. We commit to Thee all our loved ones, and beseech Thee that Thy Spirit may so control their hearts and guide their lives as to save them from forgetfulness of Thee, and from neglect of Thy claims. Remember those in authority over us. Put Thy fear in their hearts, that they may faithfully discharge their responsible duties. May Thy Spirit rest on all our people, causing us to lead peaceable, quiet and orderly lives. Hasten the triumphs of Thy Kingdom, until all hearts shall be brought under the rule of Christ, and the whole family of man shall constitute a brotherhood bound together by the bond of Christian love. These blessings we ask, with the forgiveness of our sins, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. R. C. Reed, D.D., Columbia, S. C.

famous Brazilian singer Anitta in her living room to discuss her upcoming Netflix documentary Vai Anitta. For the two hundred million people in Brazil, Anitta is like Madonna and Beyoncé combined,