At the TED 2018 conference held in Vancouver from April 10th to 14th, Reed Hastings, CEO of the streaming giant Netflix, stated that his company is the anti-Apple company, mainly referring to the management methods adopted for this purpose. concerning the organization of work.
We are the anti-Apple. They create compartments, we do the opposite. Everyone receives all the information.
No filters and no secrets on Netflix. A working choice that derives from a past experience of Hastings, the one that had its first company as its protagonist, the Pure Software, which ended up being obsessed with creating processes used to prevent errors rather than focusing on new horizons.
We were trying to create an error-proof system and in the end only the mannequins wanted to work there.
And this is precisely why Netflix employees are involved in all company choices, feeling so stimulated to express their opinions as fundamental elements of a large family.
We want people to tell the truth, so we say ” Silent disagreement is unfair “. It is not right to let a decision be made without expressing one’s opinion. We are very oriented on making choices that derive from a good comparison.
The Netflix information sharing culture creates a sense of responsibility among employees. Suffice it to say that in Netflix, in addition to being virtually involved in everything, workers can take advantage of days of leave when and how much they want. The total freedom, therefore, according to Hastings would be the key to the success of his company.
In Apple, however, the information is limited to watertight compartments, to avoid leaks of precious information about new products and sensitive data that, however, are promptly revealed. And this is basically what Hastings thinks: too much secrecy can be counterproductive.
Apple is certainly secret to the outside world and also confirms the company’s recent willingness to take legal action against those who spread the internal news. It is equally true, however, that the heads of each division meet every week to discuss what the other departments do, that the comparison is not lacking and that synergy is the key element. We are not dealing with a company of men and women who only say “Yes”. Otherwise, at this time, Apple would end up like Pure Software. But this did not happen. And do you want to know why? Here is the answer:
You do not hire smart people because they agree with you. Hire smart people to give you more points of view. This is the work of the chief executive who, a bit like the director of a film, must make sure that these separate visions are based on something unique.
Steve Jobs
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