Netflix's "dream team" concept outshines corporate culture's old-fashioned "family" model for creating productive, growth-oriented teams.

"Family" Being Described As Corporate Culture

In a business context, referring to a group of people or an organization as a "family" is a common metaphor used to highlight camaraderie, cooperation, and a feeling of shared purpose. This analogy suggests a close-knit, dependable, and devoted group cooperating toward shared objectives like a family would. 

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Netflix Culture Deck

Patty McCord, former chief talent officer at Netflix, talks about her new book, 'Powerful,' and what she has learned about building a solid corporate culture.

Businesses operate in unpredictable environments. They require a culture that balances freedom and responsibility to meet unforeseen challenges and seize emerging opportunities. Netflix discovered this lesson as it quickly grew into a company whose workers understand precisely how they add value for the company and its clients. Patty McCord claims that in doing so, the company can create an innovative culture-outlined in the well-known Netflix Culture Deck-with practices that go beyond traditional ideas of employee retention and yearly performance reviews.

Later in her career, McCord worked as a consultant and discovered that startups are more likely than larger, more established companies to develop the right teams and behaviors because they are usually free of inappropriate rules and outdated processes that hinder creativity.

Shifting 'Family' Culture Into 'Dream Team'

Netflix's ideal is not to be a family but a professional sports team. The essence of a family is unwavering love. Being on a dream team means knowing that you might not be able to stay on the team forever, striving to be the best possible teammate, and having a deep passion for your teammates. Performance matters more on dream teams than seniority or tenure. The manager is responsible for ensuring each player performs brilliantly in their position, collaborates well with others, and is given fresh chances to grow. In contrast to a sports team, Netflix has a growing player base as it expands. For players from the development leagues to become tomorrow's stars, we try to nurture them.

"We realized it was important that everyone understands that we were going to make sure our teams were constantly evolving. In discussing this, we decided to use the metaphor that the company was like a sports team, not a family. Just as great sports teams are constantly scouting for new players and culling others from their lineups, our team leaders would need to continually look for talent and reconfigure team makeup." she quoted in the book. 

Letting go of people is the most controversial aspect of this metaphor. Being cut is a common occurrence for athletes in their careers. They rarely take being cut or traded personally because everyone knows the coach's main objective is to win a championship by fielding the best team possible. It's simply a matter of how a person's skills fit or don't fit into the rest of the team when they're not a good fit for it; it's not always a direct reflection of their abilities. McCord wants us to have the same perspective on work teams.

She also quoted in the book, "I also came to realize that when you hire someone and it turns out that they can't do the job, the problem is with the hiring process, not the individual. You simply hired the wrong person. It's not their fault! So you shouldn't make them feel like it is." 

Therefore, McCord fostered a culture in which managers view their teams more like sports teams and find it simple to "cut" employees who aren't performing well. 

The "team" analogy is an excellent exploration of what "culture" truly means and how it functions. McCord suggests it to anyone who can impact company culture. Whether or not they want to emulate Netflix, reflecting on which aspects of their culture they do or don't want to adopt is a valuable exercise.

 

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