Promoting Corporate Excellence

Via kottke, I came across a stack of slides from Netflix on developing a corporate culture, embedded below.

Some highlights:

• Slides 24-29 on building a strong team. 
• Slide 33, on the difference between efforts and results.
• Slides 41-55 on the relationship between employee freedom, business complexity and the percentage of high performance employees in a company.
• Slides 76-84 on the responsibility of managers to create a context where high performance employees can thrive.

And many others on compensation, an innovative vacation policy, etc... I encourage you to look through them all. In short, I'm impressed. It strikes me as the sort of environment where high performance individuals will thrive in a cohesive and coherent way, leading to great results.

What frustrates me, though, is the outcome of all this incredible performance. After all this work, all this effort, how is the world different? Someone in Minnesota gets a DVD one day earlier than they would have otherwise. While the global energy challenge remains unresolved, while one billion people get by on less than $1 per day, etc...

The real challenge going forward is building a system wherein this level of performance can be sustained while providing benefit where it's most needed. I understand that Grameen Bank has had some success in this respect, but I want to see more.

Of course, I have nothing against Netflix, I wish them nothing but continued success. They're providing the world with an excellent organizational model, let alone a lovely DVD rental service.

Enjoy the slides!

Culture

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