You may not have heard of Patty McCord directly, but if you’re in HR or recruitment, you’ll have likely heard of her work. Patty was Chief Talent Officer at Netflix for 14 years and co-author (alongside Netflix CEO Reed Hastings) of the infamous Netflix culture deck. This document was one of the first slides on Slideshare and is probably one of the most viewed documents up there too. 

Patty has worked in many different tech companies in and around Silicon Valley, and today she  is often in the media with interviews and articles, as well as speaking at CEO forums and business schools. But it is her work that she did during her time at Netflix that she is most well known for. 

While at Netflix she abolished performance reviews as well as challenged the need for policies. Patty firmly believes people come to work as fully formed adults with a desire to make an impact and be proud of what they do. 

“It starts with the idea that people are adults and that they're smart, right. And so what I mean by that is, people who have demonstrated the ability to make a commitment and follow through, I mean, that's sort of baseline 101 for adult behaviour.”

In her chat with Dom, they cover some of the elements of the culture deck, A-players and how to hire them, how to hire and build teams, what the main job of a team leader or manager is, and how to exit staff from an organisation with dignity and fairness.

On today’s podcast:

• How the Netflix culture deck ended up on Slideshare
• The difference between hiring adults and hiring children
• Why she hates the term ‘empowerment’
• Why you should build a team for the future, not the now
• Abolish the annual performance review
• Learn how to let people go

Links:

• https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664
• https://jobs.netflix.com/culture