Netflix Taught Us to Value Values

At Appiphony, “values are what we value” most in our employees. We patterned this concept after Netflix’s much discussed view on corporate culture. Over time, Appiphony has transitioned from a predominately skills-based view of our employees to one where we utilize values to determine who we hire, promote, reward and let go. We have recognized that skills can be learned, but values are a significantly better indicator of who will create the outcomes we desire.

We did not directly borrow Netflix’s value system, since our business model and goals are very different than theirs. Instead, we identified those employees that had the biggest impact on our organization and documented the values they embodied. It ended up that only 2 of our 9 values directly overlapped with Netflix’s set. Here is our complete list:

Mastery

• You strive to be a true craftsman by gaining comprehensive knowledge or skill in a subject and you take pride in the work you do
• You build the capability to teach others your skill or domain, and willingly pass it on via mentorship
• You are curious, are willing to try new approaches, take risks and experiment

Ownership

• You accept a task and take responsibility for it; you are accountable
• You use good judgement or seek out help when you feel you are unable to meet a goal
• You exceed expectations

Value Driven

• You start by asking “why” in order to get context and understand the goal
• You focus on making sure your actions are delivering value towards the goal
• You avoid unnecessary waste

Empathy

• You seek to understand others and their situation by any means available to you
• You consciously make an effort to remove your own biases from a situation
• You inform your course of action by asking, “if I were this person, how would I feel and what would exceed my expectations?”

Plan

• You don’t approach any non-trivial task without planning
• You have a clear understanding of what “done” means
• You “pull forward” as much as you can, especially the difficult and risky tasks

Communication

• You actively listen, engage and participate
• You actively manage expectations
• You speak with “clarity of language” because your team members make decisions based on the precision of your input

Open Minded

• You consider new perspectives even if they run contrary to long held beliefs
• You are willing to try new things, especially if the investment is low
• You are comfortable with experimentation and see it as a valuable tool

Selflessness

• You make time to help colleagues and proactively share information with others
• You are ego-less when searching for the best idea and solutions
• You seek what is best for the organization not just for your group or yourself

Reflective

• You champion the attitude that we can always learn and get better
• You reflect on situations to examine how you could have improved the outcome and then actively change your behavior based on your findings
• You are continuously looking for ways to improve the teams approach to things and are willing to share your thoughts with others

Documenting and sharing our values has given all of us a stronger foundation to build from. The feedback I have received from our employees has surprised me: they seem to be inspired by the clarity that defining our values has provided them. I shared our new approach at a company-wide retrospective, and within days we saw significant change in the behavior and attitude of certain employees. The values have served as a wake-up call to all of us and provided a measuring stick by which to evaluate ourselves and our performance. Thank you, Netflix.

To learn more about Netflix and their culture, I suggest reading Harvard Business Review’s article “How Netflix Reinvented HR” by Patty McCord’s Netflix’s former head of HR and co-author of their culture deck.