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HR’s Broadly An Absolute Train Wreck
The top-rated article on HBR’s blog right now is called “How Netflix Reinvented HR.” It talks broadly about the “Netflix Culture: Freedom and Responsibility” PowerPoint created by Reed Hastings and Patty McCord (who wrote the HBR article), that Sheryl Sandberg (of Facebook/Lean In fame) has called “one of the most important documents ever to come out of Silicon Valley.” Here’s one anecdote from the HBR article that stands out:
One day I was talking with one of our best engineers, an employee I’ll call John. Before the layoffs, he’d managed three engineers, but now he was a one-man department working very long hours. I told John I hoped to hire some help for him soon. His response surprised me. “There’s no rush — I’m happier now,” he said. It turned out that the engineers we’d laid off weren’t spectacular — they were merely adequate. John realized that he’d spent too much time riding herd on them and fixing their mistakes. “I’ve learned that I’d rather work by…
