Netflix Founder and Government Chairman Reed Hastings in a latest podcast shared the technique that helped him flip Netflix into the $240 billion behemoth it’s now.
Good leaders by no means miss crucial suggestions, Hastings instructed entrepreneur Tim Ferriss within the podcast.
He known as it “Farming for dissent.”
“If you happen to’re a frontrunner, it is necessary to farm for dissent, as a result of it isn’t regular to disagree along with your boss, proper? We be taught deference,” Hastings stated, including that staff should often be “prepared to argue” with their bosses, a side which is important to nurture innovation.
“As a result of it is troublesome, emotionally, in most corporations to disagree along with your supervisor, we name it farming for dissent,” he stated.
Hastings, who served as Netflix’s CEO for greater than 20 years earlier than turning into chairman in 2023, stated he would every year ask “50 high executives” to “write down what can be totally different” in the event that they had been in command of the corporate.
The learnings helped him strategise higher. “We make everybody (submit a score), 10 to -10, whether or not they suppose it is a good concept.”
Hastings additionally cited Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s course of to learn dangerous critiques of Amazon clients to assist construct “a tradition of excessive requirements” on the firm.
Bezos suggested listening to critics and thoughtfully deciding in the event that they made a degree. Hastings stated the failed try in 2011 to rebrand the corporate’s DVD-by-mail service as a separate firm known as Qwickster impressed him to go for crucial suggestions.
The choice was stonewalled by clients and the inventory took hit, forcing Hastings to apologise and reverse the choice.
That episode, which he calls his “favourite failure” of his profession, helped him to ask for extra enter earlier than taking large calls.
