I spent my entire working life
surrounded by technology and innovation
when I was at Netflix I got to spend
many years creating and living a culture
that's admired around the world it's a
place where brilliant people thrive and
create it's a culture I'm happy to tell
you is alive and well and they're still
pushing the boundaries of how we think
about work so when I love Netflix I sort
of went on this world journey to
discover what the world of modern day
work looked like the world outside of my
backyard outside of the Silicon Valley
so now I travel and I meet with startups
and corporations business schools and
CEOs that startup world it's every
cliche you imagined and more I have seen
at work hammocks swings cats and
bartenders I've been to lovely buildings
of large companies with gourmet
restaurants and art collections I get to
debate venture capitalists and
professors
it's a terrific journey but here's the
really weird thing we still pretty much
all of us do the people stuff the way we
always have I was at a conference on
women and technology at Twitter not too
long ago Twitter and the room was full
of bright business women and engineers
and the subject of pay equality came up
because it always does and one of these
days maybe I won't have to talk about
that on stage anymore but someone in the
audience raised their hand and said how
does a woman ask for a raise and I said
seriously have you been binge watching
Mad Men again it is not the 1950s that's
not how it works anymore we change that
stuff up in the 60s most companies have
complex compensation systems with salary
bands merit increased budgets bell-curve
distributions and if you join a firm and
you're paid 20% below what you're worth
in the open market for talent you will
never catch up the math of a six and a
half percent merit increase budget
simply doesn't work in your favor
horrified she said are you telling me I
have to leave my company to get paid
what I'm worth
yes because unless your company realizes
that it's beyond food or fun or foosball
but simply paying you fairly might be
the good way to start keeping you it's
your career I told her own it it's
shocking really how little has changed
out there it's like we never question
anything we just pile more stuff on we
want to feel our car employees are
contributing like they feel like a part
of a team like they're engaged so we do
an employment engagement survey it's a
form that you fill out anonymously of
course and then we take the results of
that engagement survey and we turn it
into global corporate initiatives and
then we set out to empower you you know
empowerment where I touch you with the
magic wand and I sprinkle you with
corporate fairy dust and I declare
you're empowered do you know why we have
to empower people at work now because we
spent decades taking it away from them
with rules and process and handbooks and
procedures we think we have to teach
people now how to find at work what they
walk in the door with every day power
the power to be great you know I've
found that if you expect mediocre tea
that's precisely what you'll get but if
you expect excellence you'll be
surprised what you get even from
mediocre people what if instead we gave
people the context to operate like
business owners maybe they'd start
acting like business owners we could
teach them how to read a profit and loss
statement how to read a business
and they could understand the machine
and what their part is in it what if we
had imagined we had teams of powerful
independent people at work they
understand the business and what success
looks like you picked them because they
do believe in them they picked you
because they believe in what you're
doing what if then we said we're
expecting you to come into work every
day and contribute with your hearts and
your minds and your creativity when did
we begin to fear and suspect the people
that work for us what happened to the
trust between us maybe we killed it off
slowly with the annual performance
review you know that horrible contrived
process that we've all come to believe
is the best the only way to give people
feedback about their performance at work
and determine their pay hands up
everybody who loves the annual
performance review yeah that'd be nobody
because everybody hates it the givers
the getters the administrators we don't
even measure whether or not it improves
anybody's performance or the performance
of our businesses but we all do it
pretty much the same way seriously can't
we do better than that I mean don't get
me wrong feedback about performance is
really important it matters a lot it
helps us be better it helps us get
better it's really effective when it's
real and it's in the moment what it
includes telling you what you do right
not just what you do wrong there's got
to be a better way to do that so at one
of my startups we're practicing with a
new way of doing it they're requiring
they're mandating that people have
one-on-ones with their manager every
week and every fourth one-on-one is
about performance from the manager to
the employee and the employee to the
manager and sometimes they include other
team members it allows them to make
corrections in the moment and reward
impact it's real and it's alive now I
know you're all thinking that's really
cute but it's too simplistic and that'll
never work in our corporation but isn't
there some place somewhere some dark
corner you can let somebody experiment
with it and come up with a better way
when I was at Netflix we tried really
hard to create an environment where
people could do their best work where
innovators could innovate I remember
when Steve Jobs called Reed Hastings our
CEO and asked if we could create a video
streaming application for what he
referred to as the transformational
device we now know it as the iPad we had
tough deadlines but we made it and it
was a terrific product and everybody was
using it so I came flying into our
product meeting one morning I was full
of excitement touch technology it's
amazing it's so primal it's so human to
point your finger at something and have
it begin to play last night I was at a
restaurant in the two-year-old sitting
next to me was streaming Sponge Bob in
his highchair I can't wait until I walk
into my media room and I swiped my wall
and something begins to play and around
the room they started riffing like jazz
musicians musicians oh we won't make you
get up no another one said you'll reach
in your pocket you'll pull out your
smartphone yeah and on the phone will be
an app the mood ohmmeter
and you'll put your thumb on that app
and it will say Oh patty are you sad and
instantly a romantic comedy starring all
my favorite and actresses and actresses
will begin to play and I'll feel better
and I looked around that room and I
realized that I was surrounded by the
kind of people that if you came up with
a great idea and you put the right team
together you could make almost anything
happen and I started to think about them
you know in a
Raiders are different they approach work
differently they never look back they
look forward and imagine what might be
they don't try and make anything a
little bit better they make mistakes
they move fast they break stuff they get
rid of stuff that gets in their way
and I realized I had become one of them
I no longer spoke HR I didn't care about
best practices or initiatives or
engagement I cared about the pride that
comes from being part of an amazing team
that accomplishes amazing stuff that's
what makes people happy at work and I'm
here in front of you today to start a
revolution because it's time because we
have to the very nature of work has
changed we can't predict the future
things move fast
our computers are in our pockets we're
on the go why don't we start by telling
each other the truth job security is
over retaining people is a measure that
might not even matter we have to learn
to question all the layers of process
and approvals and compliance we have to
remove the obstacles that stand in our
way and slow us down and take away our
spirits we have to begin to think of our
careers as journeys the places we want
to go the things we want to learn we
should each of us think about where do
we want to go and how do we want to
travel I want you to start your
innovation journey today by going back
and questioning the why of what we do at
work and finally and most importantly
have the courage to throw away the stuff
we do that simply doesn't matter
I'm serious this is my revolution you
should join me thank you