This blog is about the relationship between organizations and the people who work for them. And, it’s dedicated to the millions of people around the world who go to work every day wanting to do a great job.

Best in class

Great idea # 2 – Netflix on building a great culture

by Deborah Hinton

An occasional post on a really great idea for internal communications – simple and high impact.


““I will not lie, not cheat, not steal,

nor tolerate those who do.”

All of us are responsible for value consistency.”

What a simple and obvious way to ensure that values are valued.  And that behaviours reflect values.  Well, it may be obvious, but how many organizations do you know where employees are really responsible for ensuring values consistency?

Netflix CEO Reed Hasting’s “Reference Guide on our Freedom & Responsibility Culture”  presents their current best thinking about maximizing Netflix likelihood of continuous success.

I’m a little behind in seeing this.  But thanks my good friend Christine Pietschmann I did.

This deck is one of the best things to cross my desk in a long time.  It’s well worth the time it takes to flip through the 128 slides.  It’s clear.  It’s concise.  It describes the kind of culture Netflix is building and practically what that means for employees and managers on a day-to-day basis.

It describes in a comprehensive way ‘how we do things around here’, why, and what that means for you – if you are already an employee or if you’re considering joining Netflix.  And it has clear implications for you if you are an investor or a customer or potential customer.  No ambiguity.  No gray zone.  No corporate jargon.  No acronyms.

Well done Netflix!  You’ve set the bar very high indeed.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Deborah Hinton Thursday, November 25th, 2010
Permalink Corporate communication, Culture, Internal communication, Management, Workplace No Comments

Random Posts:

From the inside looking out

by Deborah Hinton

Earlier in my career I worked for one of the most admired brands in Canada.  It’s the kind of thing that makes you proud.  You walk into any situation and people are all over you about how great it must be.  Except it wasn’t.  The buzz and hype had created an external brand that didn’t match the internal reality.

What brings this to mind is that two more of the world’s most powerful and valued  brands have taken big hits to their reputations in the past few weeks.  And both of them for misleading customers.

DELL is accused of hiding significant and potentially dangerous technical issues from their business customers. Recently unsealed lawsuit documents reveal cover-up and purposeful deception that may have gone on for years.

Apple’s iphone customers have complained of dropped calls since the first iphone hit the market.  They were told it was a network problem. A small problem of design which meant you just had to hold it a certain way.  Then a software problem.  Now, according to consumer reports the phone’s hardware is flawed.  And it looks like Apple may have known about this problem for some time.

The thing is when we say DELL and Apple knew and have been misleading customers, we mean DELL and Apple employees knew and have been misleading customers.  Certainly not all employees new.  But, most certainly some of them did.  And, no doubt many of them suspected the truth.

What’s it like to be on the inside of brands like these?  To know that the customer’s brand experience is build in whole or in part on a myth.  To know that if anyone really took a look behind the curtain they’d find behaviours that were questionable if not unethical or illegal.  To know that your boss or your colleague is misleading you?

Rising employee cynicism and plummeting trust in leadership tell the tale. So the next time you’re asked how communications can help reverse these trends don’t start drafting new and better messages to push. Stop yourself from building a inspiring internal campaign or refreshing the intranet.  Do start thinking about how you can help set the conditions for getting the right conversations going with the right people around where and how the employee experience is not aligned with the brand and discovering what needs to change.

Some additional reading

I went to see if I could find the values statements for DELL and Apple.  Read in the context of what is in the news now, they are pretty interesting.

  • Check out Dell’s official ‘Soul of Dell’
  • Apples doesn’t publish its values statement on the web, but I did find a pdf post that looks pretty credible.  If the actual values statement “customer empathy” is especially chilling.

And, I’ve been following the animated discussion on the smoke and mirrors of employer branding with Sean Trainor at CIPR Inside that adds another dimension to this post.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Deborah Hinton Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
Permalink Change Management, Communication, Corporate communication, Culture, Customer, External communication, Internal communication 1 Comment

Random Posts:

Getting back to basics – Who? Why?

by Deborah Hinton

Last week there was news that four Rio Tinto executives had been convicted of taking bribes and stealing commercial secrets.  They’d plead guilty to the bribery charges and denied the industrial espionage charges.  They will serve from 7 to 14 years in a Chinese prison.  All four have since been fired from the company.

Rio Tinto is by all accounts a good company.  It has a Code of Conduct that is well communicated – direct, easy to understand, all employees must read it when they join the organization, and attend annual sessions to understand what it means for them in their jobs.  It’s also publicly available on their website.

Rio Tinto is a company that benchmarks and follows best practice. The communication of the Code of Conduct certainly falls into that category.  [Full disclosure in a past life I was an employee of Alcan now a division of Rio Tinto]

So what happened?  Is this just a case of  “bad apples”?  Maybe.  But for the purpose of discussion let’s explore what could happen if we wanted to communicate a Code of Conduct and followed bench marked best practice without asking ourselves two basic questions – Who are we communicating with? And why?

Let’s start with who? Answer:  All employees.

Next question:  Who are all employees? Answer:  Well they are managers and miners.  And, in a global company like this one they’re from cultures and/or working in industries where the Code of Conduct is nothing new and in cultures and/or working in industries where the Code of Conduct is asking for a radical change in behaviour.

Why are we communicating the Code of Conduct? Answer: Something like to ensure appropriate [according to the law, our values, etc.] and consistent behaviour of all our employees.

From a communications point of view now I think it gets really interesting.  If you’re from and working in the West, the Code of Conduct is for the most part guidance and a reminder of behavioural norms that are well known and understand.  So reading it when you start your job and meeting with your colleagues once a year to discuss for an hour or so would probably do the job.

But, if you’re from, and working in, Africa the code of Conduct may represent a radical change of behaviour that goes against cultural norms.  And if you’re from the West working in Africa you may be comfortable with the behaviours described in the Code of Conduct but how do you get the job done without following cultural norms especially if you’re working in an industry where the competition is?

There’s not a one-size fits all solution to communicating even something as straight forward as a Code of Conduct.  So what does this mean for Communications?  How do we become more than message pushers?

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Deborah Hinton Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
Permalink Communication, Corporate communication, Culture, Internal communication No Comments

Random Posts: