Your colleagues arent your family. And thats a good thing

Your colleagues arent your family. And thats a good thingYour colleagues arent your family. And thats a good thingPatty McCord served as Chief Talent Officer of Netflix for fourteen years, and helped create the Netflix Culture Deck, which has been viewed mora than 15 million times online - Sheryl Sandberg has said that it may be the most important document ever to come out of Silicon Valley. David Burkus is a bestselling author, speaker, and associate professor of leadership and innovation at Oral Roberts University, whose newest book is Friend of a Friend Understanding the Hidden Networks That Can Transform Your Life and Your Career. The two recently sat down for a fascinating conversation about what it takes to craft powerful cultures that outlast the people who build them.This conversation has been edited and condensed.David I have wanted to have a chat with you since the first iteration of the Culture Deck. How long ago was that?Patty Youre not going to believe how long ago it w as- we started writing it in 1997. And it went up on Slideshare in 2008 when it went viral.David 20 years back. When it went viral in 2008, most people thought it was a finished document, rather than a snapshot of a work in progress. But you had been working on it since 97 - how did the whole thing start?Patty Reed Hastings and I had worked at another company that he started called Pure Software. We grew through merger and acquisition, so every couple of years we acquired another company. Every time we acquired a company, we doubled in size and every time, I took their employee handbook and our employee handbook and Id smush them together, and that would be the new policies and procedures. It was fine, it was a lovely company, but we eventually sold, and Reed invested in a bunch of startups, and Netflix was one of them.So when he called me up and asked me to join him at Netflix, I initially said no. But the way he talked me into it was by saying, Lets create the company we always d reamed of. One where wed walk in the door every day and want to work with these people and these problems.The commitment that we made to each other was that we would write stuff down. The first thing we wrote down was the behaviors we valued in people - the rule we followed was, If you act like this, thats a good thing if you dont, thats a bad thing. If you go back onto the Netflix Culture Deck, thats the first chapter - and we rewrote that like six times.This is how it worked Usually, Reed would come up with an idea, he and I would bash it around in one-on-ones, and then wed go over it with our executive team. We might talk about the idea for another couple of months, and then wed talk to the employees about it. And since it was PowerPoint, if you wanted to weigh in, you could weigh in. People would tell me, Some of us disagree with what you and Reed told us to do in the Culture Deck. I responded Okay its a PowerPoint presentation, its not a law or the hand of God. Do you disagre e with the concept, or do you disagree with whats on the slide? Because if you disagree with whats on the slide, there is an edit function.Its a PowerPoint presentation, its not a law or the hand of God.The next chapter was called High Performance. We started to be really articulate about the kind of people that we wanted to work with. We wanted them to be adults, we wanted them to be interested in the problem, we wanted them to be focused. We started this system of examining the way we work. We initially used the document for onboarding. So wed hire a bunch of people, and Reed and I would meet with them, and wed go over the deck and ask questions. We wrote chapter after chapter, year after year - we worked on it for those first ten years.So Reed and I are driving to work one day and he says I met this woman who has this really cool company called Slideshare, and they put PowerPoint presentations online, so I put the deck up. Im like, Oh God, Reed. Its the ugliest document known to humankind, and second of all, youre going to scare away all of the candidates. And he said Only the ones we dont want. But the day we published it, it changed the way we innovated. Because people had an insight into who we were, and we really meant it by then. Ten years in, we were really practicing the things that we talked about in the Netflix Culture Deck. It made for really rich, deep conversations.David Im not surprised it went viral because of the truths it speaks to. There are two things that I really liked about it. One was the emphasis on high performance - Adequate performance will be met with a generous severance package. The other thing is that you clued in on that keyword - adults. So many of us think about performance, incentives, motivators, et cetera. Were potty training my 3-year-old child now. What were doing to potty train a 3-year-old is what most companies spend billions of dollars designing. Granted its usually more complicated than, If you do this. youll ge t a cookie. But thats basically what were doing. And then heres Netflix saying, No, theyre grownups. Theyre high performers. Theyre big motivators. They want to be working on projects that matter.We started to be really articulate about the kind of people that we wanted to work with. We wanted them to be adults, we wanted them to be interested in the problem, we wanted them to be focused.Patty When we create these sophisticated feedback problems, we sometimes forget how effective a cookie is. I get a lot of questions about how to give great feedback. I think its unfortunate that feedback is often constructive criticism, which is basically telling you, you did something bad and you should probably stop. And as you know with a 3-year-old, thats not all that effective, because they dont remember and theyre on to the next day. If you really want to give people feedback that will drive high performance, you catch them doing something right, in the moment.As sophisticated as we get as adu lts, were wired very primally for positive feedback. There are some things youre doing with your 3-year-old that are very applicable. In the same vein, you shouldnt have to threaten an adult that they wont get a cookie if they dont do the right thing.If you really want to give people feedback that will drive high performance, you catch them doing something right, in the moment.David Or theres even a lot of evidence that people arent in it for the cookie. I used to work in a sales organization, and when youre interviewing, the right answer is that youre motivated by money because thats the only thing they can offer you. But the truth is, most of us arent. If youre an intelligent person, you want to go to work on difficult problems and exercise your creativity in a team to solve them. Thats the foundational idea of what youve built. That success is a good motivator, and people want to be tackling those problems. Thats different from base salary and compensation, but its not, Lets dang le a carrot or a cookie in front of people, - its, Lets give them the stuff they want to work on.Patty I came to that through observation. Ive watched people in their work for a long time, and I know that when people experience great joy at work, its when theyve done something amazing that theyre proud of. You want to create a situation where you go home and tell your spouse or your pet, It was a great day at work today Thats what motivates everybody. You have to care about what youre doing and really love the people that youre working with, and get great stuff done. Thats whats satisfying.The accomplishments that you have at work are what create your fabulous career. Thats why I wanted Netflix to be a great place to be from, not a place that wants to keep you.Ive watched people in their work for a long time, and I know that when people experience great joy at work, its when theyve done something amazing that theyre proud of.David Were hitting on another thing- one of the things Iv e admired about Netflix is you use the word team,not family.Patty I was in a conference the other day talking with professional sports coaches. One of them said, It must be so hard for you to say goodbye to these great players who youve played so many games with and had such a great experience. And the coach of the San Antonio Spurs just looked incredulous, and said, It actually doesnt feel that bad at all. We both came in knowing that were only going to be together for a certain period of time to win the games where the team is right.So the family metaphor is just not true. Youre going to be with your 3-year-old when theyre 33, but thats not what happens at work.The family metaphor is just not true. Youre going to be with your 3-year-old when theyre 33, but thats not what happens at work.David Lets talk about you, then. How did you know it was time to leave Netflix? What were other peoples reactions?Patty Well, everything operates within the context of the business. At the time tha t I left, we had a lot of turmoil in the business, physically separating out DVD by mail and streaming. I used to tell Reed, Im kind of a serial entrepreneur- I turn into a pumpkin about every four years. The great thing about Netflix for me was I got three startups and I didnt have to leave home. The first one was coming up with a business model that might actually work before we ran out of money after three or four years. The second one was DVD by mail. The third one was my last tour at Netflix, which was figuring out the technology behind digital streaming, and now Netflix as a global content provider. And you know, I got what I wished for. Netflix is a great place to be from.I got what I wished for. Netflix is a great place to be from.This article first appeared on Heleo.