Team & Future Leadership, i.e. managing people and change. Learn the strategies of Google and Netflix leaders

The so-called human capital is the most valuable asset of the world’s leading companies from many industries. For example, I chose two of them: Google and Netflix to give our readers a chance to learn from the best.

Google and its Creative Geniuses

Creative Genius is a member of the Google team, characterized by specific qualities of character and skills. In this way, the company’s management distinguishes people who create a new quality in the team and enrich it with their presence.

Those of you who have read my book “Wall”, written together with Wojciech Maroszek, know the acronym CEMKi, which was created by combining the words: Features, Mentality and Competences. It is a set of appropriate CEMKs that make up the right employee, in this case a Creative Genius. Of course, none of them combined all the qualities included by the management of the concern in the set that characterizes a person described by this honorable name. For sure, however, it can be proud of at least half of the following.

Creative Genius is someone who is characterized by:

• openness to the world
• agility in action
• readiness for professional development
• having outstanding knowledge in your specialization
• being a very creative person
• ability to make decisions – also when employed in a lower, non-managerial position
• the ability to carry out analytical reasoning and work out – with its help – the optimal decision
• ability to work hard when you need it
• continuous improvement, “tweaking” the products it deals with. Of course, he can also relax, but the thought about the possibilities of improving his work is constantly present in his head and heart

In the book “How Google Works” its authors: Eric Schmidt, Alan Eagle and Jonathan Rosenberg – Google’s executive director, executive president of this company and his personal advisor write that if Kreatywny Geniusz operated in the automotive industry, he would definitely devote his free time to his own car. He would then sit with them at least once a week, in the evenings or on weekends, and learn it first, then perfect it and beautify it. And when he had satisfied his private passion, he would return to work and perform his duties there – also with passion.

When a Creative Genius lives his job, it does not mean that he works overtime for free. However, the topic of the work is still present in his heart and head, and he is still improving and “polishing” in his mind the solutions he is working on.

As we read in the book of Google managers, a person referred to by them by this distinctive title sees products – both theirs and their companies – from the customer’s perspective. Thanks to this, it can make them become friendly to this client. Regardless of whether it is a marketer, salesperson or a person in production – he will always perfectly understand the point of view of the target user of a given product, i.e. the company’s client.

Another feature that characterizes the Creative Genius is “innovation”. This means that he comes up with new ideas all the time and wants to keep improving something.

At the same time, what is really extremely important, he sees the entire production process in which he participates from a “business perspective”. That is, he thinks about it in terms of the company’s interest, profit – in short: “is it profitable?”.

Certainly, a few more could be added to the above-mentioned CEMKs, but the ones mentioned above are taken into account by Google managers when they look for new candidates for Creative Genius in their team.

The first, basic principle developed by Google is that:

You cannot expect results from your employees, from your company, or from yourself if you do the same with every customer and with every employee.

So you have to be flexible and adapt your actions to each person we work with, because each of them is an individual individual. Thus, in each Creative Genius, his openness, innovation and decision-making will be manifested in a slightly different way. How much you understand and accept each individual’s difference and are able to talk to different people in a way that suits them will be a sign of how high you have achieved or achieved Emotional Intelligence.

Experts emphasize that the advantage in the business market begins to belong to managers characterized by a high level of emotional intelligence.

I can quote here an example from my backyard as a coach and business advisor. Right now I am working on solving an internal conflict in one of the companies whose main manager has invited an outstanding specialist to cooperate with him to help solve some operational issues related to working time and technical matters in the Production Department of this company. The Production Department has its boss, a person of great authority among the staff, but for some reason he was unable to cope with these critical issues. However, the invited expert did not start with getting to know the specifics of the department and with the organizational culture prevailing in it, but immediately “stepped in” and started to rule. His ideas are probably not bad at all, he is an outstanding specialist in his field, but no one was even going to get acquainted with them. He entered too fast, too hard, and people simply rioted. The conflict continued for six months, and finally the chief manager of this company asked me for help as people were already seriously considering leaving the company.

If all these managers: both the head of the company, the head of the department, and the newly invited expert had a developed emotional intelligence at a higher level, they would deal with it themselves and would not have to spend money on hiring an external specialist.

Creative Genius is characterized by the fact that he looks at everything in a “multidimensional” way, that is, in terms of the needs of the business in which he works and the needs of the people he works for. The latter, in turn, are both the company’s employees and its customers. In other words, our KG is an outstanding specialist in his profession, but he also knows how to talk to people, how to communicate with them. Because you can have everything, but if you do not have the ability to work with resistance and you lack communication skills – that is, you cannot reach people and convince them of your arguments, you will have a “rebellion on board”.

In order to find KG candidates in your team, and then manage their work, you need to – as a leader – create a space for them to “test”. So apart from projects in which you require specific work effects, you should give them projects that they can make a mistake or make a mistake. You, of course, are in charge of everything, but not to control your people, but to help them draw conclusions. Because giving them space to make a mistake is one thing. However, a separate question is whether they will be able to draw appropriate conclusions and lessons for themselves. Because if these mistakes only cause their activity to slow down, then all science will be useless. And if this mistake made by them causes a conflict in the department in which they work, or a conflict with someone from another department, then the proverbial “bubble of problems will grow”.

It’s just like when we raise a child. By giving him space to make mistakes, we must teach him to learn from those mistakes.

One of the good ways to increase the potential and knowledge of Creative Geniuses is the practice of “exchanging” your people functions in the company. At least once a year – although better a few times and at least for a few hours, but preferably for the whole day. It is not always possible to organize it 100% and that is not the point at all. However, when people exchange projects, scope of responsibility, experience various aspects of the functioning of the company in which they work, the more Creative Genius develops in them. Because then they understand different aspects of the business. And it’s not that easy to coordinate at all. It is worth replacing people in blue-collar positions so that they do not fall into a fatal routine. However, in creative positions: operational or decision-making, it is also worth finding a way, because thanks to this our Creative Geniuses will be even more creative.

Another thing – you have to pay for the time our employees develop their own projects. Or maybe they want to learn, for example? It is worth giving them 10% of their working time, paid by us, to develop their own ideas. So “I am the one who will pay you for the development of your creativity. Besides, I will also send you to trainings. ” And then Creative Genius has a space to test and develop his competences.

When we work on creating the next GC, we must be ready to pay him more. We cannot underestimate him financially, because then we will simply lose him. And it is not worth losing him – he is a more intelligent person and more aware of his abilities compared to other, average employees.

Another element, already widely practiced in the world, is the creation of a “yes culture”. This means that we try to accept new ideas and allow them to be tested rather than endlessly analyzing the risk and thus blocking the initiative. It is always better to test the proposed solution and draw conclusions from it – of course only when the project under consideration comes from a reliable person, whose intention we have no doubts about.

Also, recruitment for our company – which is really important – should be adjusted to the process of selecting potential Creative Geniuses. Therefore, you need to write the advertisement in such a way, and then talk to the candidates in the next stages of the recruitment process in such a way as to select such talents. In order not to “lose” any.

Another possible way is not to conduct long-term recruitment, but to quickly “invite a given candidate on board” or “onboard”. We then implement it quickly in our organization and give ourselves a month or two to check if the person fits us. We also look at how he is doing “in battle”. It is not always possible to do this, but if it is possible, it is worth a try.

Not all companies can afford what Google practices – giving their people the opportunity to develop their own companies, even taking care of such initiatives. Thanks to this, this world tycoon avoids the risk of losing the most valuable employees. Kevin Systrom left Google many years ago. He founded Instagram shortly after, and sold it to Facebook for a billion dollars a few years later. Since then, Google has been telling its people: “If you want to leave to develop your new idea, first try promoting this product with us.” The group’s experts also ask so-called strategic investor questions, which verify whether this Creative Genius is really ready to enter the market:

• What is a product?
• What is your business model?
• What kind of clients do you have?
• What’s your competition?
• What’s your business environment?

These questions are intended to support the new initiative but also to verify it. And if our hero will not be able to explain these issues in a binding manner, it will mean that he is not ready with his start-up yet. However, if he answers it, then another Google team comes into action and says: “OK, we will finance it for you, or do it as part of our project.” If, however, this was not enough to keep a valuable person in the company, then it would be difficult, they would lose him.

In the above-mentioned book, “How Does Google Work?” we read:

• Don’t hire people who are boring and unimaginative.
• Or those who mostly sit and think and who are fun to talk to but then don’t get into action.
• This also applies to you. If, after weeks / months / years spent in a given company, you have become a “boring thinker” who only thinks and does not work and you are looking for just any, simple work instead of “blooming with ideas” and unconventional initiatives, and you prefer to work alone, not with people – then change your job, because the current one will lead you either to depression or – in the lightest case – to lethargy and you won’t achieve much.
• And if you have such partners or employees, you will also have to part with them – and certainly avoid recruiting such people.
• It is also not worth employing people who like to work only alone. The point is not that they should not work independently at all – it can also be a necessary stage in the creative process of developing solutions. However, sooner or later you also have to collaborate with other team members.
• Unless it is an Outstanding Genius – not only Creative, who gets a very narrow specialization and he is to provide specific materials and is such a “sacred” in the company. Only then is it justified to hire such a person.
• On the other hand, Creative Geniuses think broadly: in terms of marketing, sales, and business. They know the basics of graphics, are familiar with the specificity of the functioning of social media, they know the basics of management – that is, multi-threaded and integral thinking. This means that they “embrace” the entirety of the matters with which they relate, not only focusing on their narrow areas.

When I work with future coaches, counselors and trainers in the School of Counselors and teach people to work like me, I always prepare them to think integral. We move then many dimensions. When I run the Leadership Academy, the Leader Academy or the school of managers in companies, we also go very often so that they can develop multilayered. During coaching or individual consulting with managers or business owners, I also always encourage them not to “go tunnel”, i.e. one trail marked in advance.

• Also, don’t hire people whose only passion is work. He will be a very committed person, even a workaholic, but he does not have “broad thinking” and will burn out quickly.
• Also, don’t hire people who are manipulative and only want to compete.
• Don’t hire or retain people who make you lower the “bar”. If, for their sake, you deviate from your standards, that is very bad.
• In the Change Value Process – a methodology for strategic change management – we always emphasize to avoid making decisions based on any fears or concerns.
• And never retain or recruit an employee if it would entail the above-mentioned “lowering the bar”, deviation from your standards. Of course, if you are in an industry that is having a hardcore hard time recruiting people now, sometimes you have to slow down your turnover a bit and lower the “bar” just to have people to work at all. But this is only permissible in the short term – for a quarter or six months. Otherwise, you will end up in the “business dump”.
• Also, don’t hire or support people who don’t question your opinion. Indeed, encourage them to present their opinion – different from yours. This is necessary, otherwise you run the risk of falling into the trap of “being the smartest” and losing the perspective of your company’s affairs.

Hire people who know what to do and develop them to be:

• more intelligent than you
• had more knowledge than you
• contributed a lot to the products and culture of the organization so that they would create it

It is very general to talk about “employing those who can do the right thing”. So see if, when necessary, they will simply “roll up their sleeves” and get to work, or if they are whining and philosophizing excessively.

• Hire those who are enthusiastic about the job.
• And those who are ready to work as a team.

Of course, everyone has a right to a more difficult moment. However, after a few days / weeks, his enthusiasm for work must return. And you, as a leader, must arouse this enthusiasm in people. You have to learn to motivate them. Sometimes it is enough to help them cope with difficulties, and then the energy to act will come to them. In Change Value Process we say:

You don’t have to motivate people. Help them deal with what is blocking them, preventing them from acting effectively. Then the motivation will come to them.

Sometimes it is enough to just listen to them for a “rebirth” of a person “entangled” in various problems and adversities.

• Work with people who are constantly developing, learning new things
• Also look for those who have an interesting life and remarkable interests for cooperation – then they will be really partners with their own opinion, not just employees

All these principles developed by Google are not always easy to apply to a small company or a young company with a small budget. However, do not go to the extreme of Fri. “Oh, Google can do it because he has billions of dollars in his account.” Perhaps you will not be able to take advantage of all the solutions of this tycoon of the global market. However, think about what part of them you could implement in your company. Perhaps you will not need all of them, and you will not be able to afford some of them. Some, however, will allow you to really enlarge the potential of your business venture. After all, don’t try to take everything at once. You do not need to immediately start financing people’s development within 10% of your employment. Finance in one percent. Add one hundred or ten zlotys to their development. Or give them free content by inviting them to a webinar like mine, for example. Inspire them to read my blog, or other specialists’ books or blogs.

Now think which elements of the strategy developed by Google are the most important to you. Perhaps you have “born” a new decision about how to run your business? Maybe it is, for example, putting more emphasis on action instead of endless analysis? Or maybe you will pay more attention to innovation now? I always ask managers: “What innovation have you prepared for this year?” And if he tells me about the two he already has in store, then I ask: “What third and fourth are you going to prepare?” Or at least pre-planning? I always “broaden” their way of thinking. Certainly, not everything can be done at once, but it is important to constantly provide yourself with new stimuli for development.

• Hire people with a higher IQ, which can often be seen with the naked eye during an interview
• Make good decisions
• Build employee brand
• Make people enthusiastic by being enthusiastic about the tasks ahead
• Approach each employee individually, appreciating their capabilities and taking into account their limitations. What turns out to be the proverbial “piece of cake” for one, for another may be an “unstoppable threshold”.

When an employee comes to see you and says, “Boss. I would like to spend 10% of my time reading such and such materials or watching such and such webinars, because I’m going to implement this and that every month ”then agree. Both your employee and your company will benefit.

The basis of the “Leadership Mindset” in the Change Value Process, whether you are employers or employees, is drawing conclusions and making decisions based on those conclusions. The very next day is best.

So if, after reading the above comments, a conclusion pops up in your mind, but you haven’t made a decision yet, make it now. “I will do this and this, I will go here and here, analyze this and this, I will work through this and that” – making a decision is saying that “something will happen”.

Leaders are those of us who make decisions.

When I run Leadership Mindset workshops, each module is designed to encourage participants to make decisions. Sometimes it can be such a decision to “let go of the topic” and take no action. Sometimes it’s better that way.

Now I invite you to talk about Netflix solutions.

Netflix and a good HR

Behind Netflix’s HR success is Patty McCord, who has been in charge of their HR department for about 15 years. It was she, along with the management board, who built the company’s success. She popularized two issues:

• Give people systematic feedback
• Bet on talents

Patty once said that when Netflix was only active in the US, it grew quarterly by 30%. That is, every three months the number of users of their networks increased by nearly one third. It was then that they realized that, growing at such a pace, they would reach HBO levels within a year, which until recently seemed to be only an unsurpassed dream. But now there is concern about what company will serve their servers and the flow of such a huge amount of data.

In Change Value Process, we repeat the following motto:

Your professional success – and your company’s success, if you have one – is directly proportional to your internal readiness for that success.

The world is constantly testing us, the market is testing us to what extent we are ready. It can therefore be said that at the time of the impending great success, some of Netflix’s people were not ready for it. That is why they felt terror, instead of satisfaction and motivation to act. The sooner they matured internally and then found the technological solutions to meet this challenge, the sooner they could actually achieve this success.

I know for myself that I have sometimes felt anxious, not even to say fear, in the face of the upcoming success in my business. It really overwhelmed me. I then needed to be internally prepared to accept this success. I’ve been working on making the thought of higher earnings so that the thought of larger scope of projects and a larger team would not overwhelm me.

Thanks to this, I am now where I am and will be there in a few months where I plan to be, because now I am ready for it. If you observe the development of our company, you can see how we are growing. And you will be even more surprised when you see what happens in the next three / five years.

Patty McCord draws attention to the “family aspect” of the company’s operation. So he asks, “Do you think the company should be like a family?”, “Do you think the company is – in a sense – your family?”.

And he emphasizes that you can’t think so. Because if you lend money to your family and they don’t give you back, you’ll survive it somehow. You’ll be pissed off, but “family is family.” In business, however, this is not the case. You borrowed? You have to give back. If you don’t return, there will be consequences.

In business, you have to verify people, require them, but also take care of their development.

And now it’s hard to make a family grow. Well, because how to verify the results achieved by them? Somehow a bit silly when you have a close relationship.

And business is always balancing. Between: being demanding and being nice. Between: being someone who reviews and judges sharply and being someone who maintains good relationships.

Patty McCord met her band regularly, sometimes even once a month. So is Scotty Bowman, one of the best hockey coaches in the world. He sits down with each player every ten matches, analyzes his behavior on the pitch and draws conclusions and, in preparation for future games, analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of opponents. Then he arranges a development strategy for each of his players.

Patty also gives regular feedback, which allows you to correct any errors in operation on an ongoing basis. And not once a year “periodic employee appraisal”, because it is too rare. Man needs to receive so-called feedback from week to week and month to month. Only then is the company “agile”, ready to react quickly to changes in the current situation.

If you are your own boss or you cannot count on good feedback from your boss, then you have to become a coach for yourself. However, giving feedback yourself is not easy and it is therefore good to be able to use a third party here to give you the feedback you need for your further development. Thanks to these stimuli, you will be able to continue working on yourself.

About ten entrepreneurs use my help in this way. They have a “strategic and coaching subscription” in which they receive feedback from me about their work each month. They ask, “ask me difficult questions”, “be my sparring partner and advocate for the devil who gives me the impetus to develop.” Thanks to these questions, they verify themselves and thus can avoid mistakes caused by not recognizing certain opportunities, but also threats.

Another important thing – Patty says: “Watch what is happening in the world. If you want to be innovative, do not come up with miraculous things that come to your mind, but carefully analyze trends among your customers. Bite deeply into their problems, into their reality, into the needs they communicate. Enter their world. Analyze exactly what they are doing. ” Netflix has the ease, but also the difficulty, that it can, through algorithms and artificial intelligence, analyze very precisely who is watching what. Who likes what. I am surprised, therefore, that it is not yet possible to rate movies on Netflix so that they have that kind of feedback and can research my needs as a cinematography lover / consumer. The fact that I have watched one or the other film of a certain genre does not mean that it is definitely my favorite choice in this regard. At the same time, you have to observe what is happening in the world to be inspired by various ideas. And when we do so, we do indeed create a culture of innovation. Patty found that:

Success is doing what you love, being great at it and working with exceptional people on it.

There is also another definition of success related to the notion of happiness:

Happiness is loving what you have.
Success is achieving what we didn’t have and what we wanted .

To paraphrase Patty’s words, I have allowed myself to elaborate on this:

Success is doing what you love or at least like
Being great at it, or getting better
And doing it with special people, or at least with cool people

Patty is now an independent consultant helping businesses around the world. When she was still managing Netflix’s HR department, she developed an important rule:

Create projects in the company that will inspire your employees.

People’s motivation to work is closely related to whether or not they work on cool projects with cool people. Then they are motivated. This is perhaps the simplest and most accurate definition of motivation that I have heard so far.

People are motivated to work when they do cool projects with cool people.

So your task, team leader, is to think about what projects to create that will earn the company and at the same time will be attractive to people. As Patty noticed, when a man returns from work and someone asks him how his day was, he then has two things in mind: were the projects he worked on were fun, and were the people he worked on with them were fun.

And then, even if there are no effects of these projects, but it was nice working with cool people, then our employee will say: You know, there are no effects, but cool things are happening.

It is not easy to organize work in a company like this and this is a real challenge for its leaders.

Patty pointed out one more thing: Remember that by giving feedback you are badly creating a feeling of guilt that eats away at you from the inside out. Therefore, good management is also managing our people’s emotions, so that they do not feel bad as a result of listening to our words.

You need to learn about talents and focus on their development.

Patty also recommended focusing on how we work. What does our calendar look like and what work methodology we have adopted. How do you talk to each other and what is the analysis of projects. When you focus on how you can transform, improve, blame, improve the way you work, everything will change around you. Because when the people around you work well, with cool people and in a fun way, an excellent atmosphere for cooperation will be created in the company and people-friendly and effective solutions will start to emerge.

Are these Netflix solutions inspiring for you? Or maybe you have already made some decisions about improving the work of your companies thanks to reading about them?

I cordially greet you and keep my fingers crossed for the success of your business.

Adam Dębowski – CEO of the Institute of Change Leaders, entrepreneur, business advisor, mediator. Founder of the methodology of strategic management and change management: Change Value Process. author of the psychologiastrategiczna.pl blog and the online platform: adamdebowski.pl