McCord's quote lead me to look more in-depth at the source of her fame: the Netflix Culture Deck. Take a look. Like, for at least 30 seconds.
Now, if you came back to this page after reading far too long, no worries. It's captivating stuff. She outlines some sapient and straightforward rules, right? And it's not hard to sense something under the words, fitting together. A system that celebrates human attributes instead of tallying them as inefficiencies. One that allows for error, encouraged by fact and patience.
The Deck's proclamation prompts, "are these the right guidelines? Could this be the key to smoothing out business roadblocks? To replacing culture rot with a small society of individuals that give a damn?
For those who skipped the read (*tsk tsk!* you'd be hard-pressed to answer these questions without primary sources!) I have prepared, hopefully without advertising too heavily, some highlights.
As outlined in The Deck:
- employees are encouraged to cultivate real values, be transparent, and employ only the motivated.
- employees' compensation packages are stock-balanced to grow unity ("let's all succeed together!")
- people thrive on freedom and trust; thus, employees are held accurately accountable to promote self-discipline and proactivity.
The plan sounds good, right? Wholesome and empowering at once.
The especially nice thing about McCord outlining this plan, however, isn't that it's easily digestible and referenceable (though these points certainly help). No, the powerfully inspiring undercurrent of the text is its tone of inclusivity. And, losers, you guessed right -- this inclusivity is even supportive of us, the failures, too!
You see, Netflix advises prospective applicants to embody this culture, as outlined. And sure, this helps weed out the most cynically anti-social of us. But to the rest of us? It extends a little grace. It forgives, just a little.
This is where the big magic hits. Even if these weren't our ideals before, as we read about them, we want them to be our ideals. We want to aspire to honest, momentous, invigorating culture.
Well.
--
A little too Brave New World?
Maybe.
But consider this quote from the Deck:
"Our big threat over time is lack of innovation, so we should be relatively error tolerant...the seduction is that error prevention just sounds so good, even if it is often ineffective. We are always on guard..."
Few would argue that, even if Harry Potter's Mad-Eye Moody could get his "constant vigilence!," it would be bad for the spirit. People work best when they're not tense every minute.
But when our attention is always seeking what's over our shoulder, we lose the opportunity to study what's ahead. If creativity can bloom in a comedy of errors, as Netflix infers, then we of the failed relationships have hope. If the Culture Deck rings true (at least for now), we who stumble in darkness can get back up again.
We have a guide. We have ideals.
We have the Deck.
Baller. Thanks, Netflix.
<3
(p.s. please Netflix give me free stuff)