Netflix Founder and Government Chairman Reed Hastings in a latest podcast shared the technique that helped him flip Netflix into the $240 billion behemoth it’s now.
Good leaders by no means miss vital suggestions, Hastings informed entrepreneur Tim Ferriss within the podcast.
He referred to as it “Farming for dissent.”
“For those who’re a pacesetter, it is essential to farm for dissent, as a result of it is not regular to disagree together with your boss, proper? We be taught deference,” Hastings stated, including that workers should sometimes be “keen to argue” with their bosses, a side which is important to nurture innovation.
“As a result of it is troublesome, emotionally, in most corporations to disagree together with your supervisor, we name it farming for dissent,” he stated.
Hastings, who served as Netflix’s CEO for greater than 20 years earlier than changing into chairman in 2023, stated he would yearly ask “50 prime executives” to “write down what can be totally different” in the event that they had been accountable for the corporate.
The learnings helped him strategise higher. “We make everybody (submit a ranking), 10 to -10, whether or not they suppose it is a sensible concept.”
Hastings additionally cited Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s course of to learn unhealthy opinions of Amazon prospects to assist construct “a tradition of excessive requirements” on the firm.
Bezos suggested listening to critics and thoughtfully deciding in the event that they made a degree. Hastings stated the failed try in 2011 to rebrand the corporate’s DVD-by-mail service as a separate firm referred to as Qwickster impressed him to go for vital suggestions.
The choice was stonewalled by prospects and the inventory took hit, forcing Hastings to apologise and reverse the choice.
That episode, which he calls his “favourite failure” of his profession, helped him to ask for extra enter earlier than taking huge calls.