Netflix Reinvents Itself Again

Netflix received 34 Emmy Award nominations in 2015 for shows it created. Yet, a few short years before, it was purely a distribution channel, producing no content. This strategy shift represents a complete reinvention to take advantage of changing circumstances and opportunities.

It's the second time Netflix reinvented itself. A decade ago the growth of streaming videos threatened its video-by-mail delivery system. So it chose to keep the cannibals in the family, cut the heart out of its existing business model, and moved into streaming.

In some ways this is not surprising because its origins lay in cutting the heart out of Blockbuster's video store business model. The question is what allows an organization such as Netflix to reinvent itself and continue to grow while an organization such as Blockbuster can't get out of its own way.

The difference is culture. Blockbuster was more set in its ways, focused on protecting what it had and working to build reliable, repeatable processes in a structured, disciplined way. Its decision making was tightly controlled, and communication was so formal and directed as to leave little room for discussion.

On the other hand Netflix people talk about their culture like this: “Instead of a culture of process adherence, we have a culture of creativity and self-discipline, freedom and responsibility.” Certainly they try to avoid “irrevocable disasters,” but “mostly though, rapid recovery is the right model.”²

Army versus Navy

As Boris Groysberg, Andrew Hill, and Toby Johnson describe in “Which of These People Is Your Future CEO?”³ the U.S. Navy and Air Force are strong on process and light on flexibility, whereas the Army and Marines are lighter on process and stronger on flexibility. They argue these differences stem from the equipment with which the different services deploy. A small mistake on a ship can have devastating impact, as can not reacting to a changing situation in ground warfare. So the Navy has built a culture based on command and control to minimize mistakes whereas the Army has built one designed to push decisions down and out to encourage initiative.

Not surprisingly, when you look at the way the Army approaches behaviors, relationships, attitudes, values, and the environment, you get a markedly different picture than you do with the Navy. As you can see by the spider chart in Figure 1.1, the Army is more fluid, flexible, informal, and collaborative than the Navy on almost every dimension. It's not that one is better than the other. It's just that they are different, appropriately so, given their different missions and circumstances.

This chart is based on Tool 1.1, which can help you map your culture. Like all the tools in this book, it is printed at the end of the chapter and included in the downloadable tools at www.onboardingtools.com. Most find it easier and more elegant to write in those than in the book. Plus, you'll find other tools and more in-depth discussions around a number of ideas on that site. The website is an important resource to accompany this book. Use it.

Thing 1

Before you accept a job, you must first get an offer. Then, and only then, can you decide whether you should accept it. Do not do these steps out of order. Your initial focus should be on getting the job offer. If you start to imagine or assume you have the job before you have the offer, you have diverted some of your energy away from reality and are wasting your time. Once you have received the offer, your approach should change.

Everything you do in the interview process should be designed to get someone else to offer you the job. This includes not only your answers to their questions but also your questions to them. At this stage in the process, your questions are not about helping you decide whether you want the job. They are about helping them decide to offer it to you. Sell yourself first. Secure the offer. Then, after you have the offer, and only then, figure out whether it's right for you.

Thing 2

There are only three interview questions.

Every question you've ever been asked, and every question you've ever asked in any interview, is a subset of one of these three fundamental questions:

1. Can you do the job?
2. Will you love the job?
3. Can I tolerate working with you?

Those three questions asked in a more traditional way are:

1. What are your strengths?
2. Will you be motivated to do the job?
3. Are you a fit?

That's it: strengths, motivation, fit. The questions may be asked in different ways, but every question, however worded, is just a variation on one of these. As each question comes, it is your task to determine which of the three is really being asked.

Thing 3

Because there are only three fundamental interview questions, there are only three fundamental interview answers.

Every answer you give in an interview should be a subset of these three answers:

1. My strengths are a match for this job.
2. My motivations are a match for this job.
3. I am a good fit for this organization.

That's it. Those three. Your answers to questions will be more elaborate, but your answers should always be dressed-up versions of one of the three.

Because there are only three interview questions and only three interview answers, all you have to do is to prepare three answers in advance and recognize what question you are being asked. Then you are ready to ace any interview.

The bad news is that it is going to be a lot more work than you might think to prepare these answers in advance of each interview. Interviews are exercises in solution selling. They are not about you. They are about your interviewers—their needs, their problems. You are the solution. Think of the interview process as a chance for you to show your ability to see, hear, and solve the organization's and the interviewer's problem.

If interviewers know what they are doing, they will be looking beyond a narrowly defined problem (and solution) and for technical expertise across a broader set of criteria: strengths, motivations, and fit. When they don't really know what they're doing, they can be brought around to seeing things the right way. Still, in every case the solution must be presented from their perspective. Thoughtful preparation can be the deciding factor between a yes and a no. This is tricky stuff, but it is worth the investment of time.

1. Question 1: Can you do the job? Or more likely: What are your strengths? (Strengths)
2. Answer 1: Prepare three situation/action/results examples that highlight your strengths in the areas most important over the short term and long term to the people interviewing you.
3. Question 2: Will you love the job? Or more likely: What are you looking to do? (Motivation)
4. Answer 2: Discuss how the role you are applying for matches what you like to do.
5. Question 3: Can I tolerate working with you? Or more likely: What sort of people do you like to work with? (Fit)
6. Answer 3: Discuss how your preferences across behaviors, relationships, attitudes, values, and the environment match the organization's culture on those dimensions.

Note you'll find more discussion about the questions behind the questions on www.onboardingtools.com.

Imagine that you are interviewing for a job where a new leader and a new team are being put together to solve a specific problem or to address a specific need or goal. To become the winning candidate, you may need to act as a management consultant, helping the decision makers and team members get a better sense of what the problems, or needs, really are, and then conveying confidence that under your supervision the right things will get done.

Land Mine 1: Organization

The lack of a clear, concise, differentiating, and winning strategy creates an organizational land mine.

You do not want to get on a ship that is doomed to sink. Some people thrive on this risk and want to be part of the turnaround. It is one thing to be a turnaround expert going into an organization that knows it needs to make significant changes fast. It is a recipe for disaster if you are not a turnaround expert and you're going into an organization that needs those skills but doesn't actually realize it.

Louisa had been looking for a job for 18 months. She took a job with a growing division of a major player in the software business. It was trying to expand into a completely new area and asked her to come in as vice president of marketing for the new group. She had been lobbying for the general manager role, but settled for the marketing job because she was so excited about the new division's prospects. She should not have been.

As it turned out, the division had no competitive advantage and was competing against an entrenched competitor that had quickly stepped into the gap on which Louisa's new company had staked the division's future. Six months into the job, Louisa recommended that the company abandon the effort and focus its efforts on other things. It was the right recommendation for the organization, but bad for Louisa because she was out of a job again.

Deactivation method: Ask tough questions.

Land Mine 2: Role

If expectations, resources, or key stakeholders are not aligned, you will encounter a role land mine. Often new leaders step into jobs that are virtually impossible from the start because the expectations are unrealistic or cannot be delivered for whatever reason.

One new president had done a great job of negotiating his title and package, but had failed to consider reporting lines and resources. He soon learned that none of the heads of marketing, finance, information, or human resources reported to him. His only direct reports were the heads of sales and business development. By taking the title of president—without the appropriate authority—all he had managed to do was to paint a target on his back for his peers to shoot at so they could get him out of the way and strengthen their own positions.

Deactivation method: Listen for inconsistencies or uncertainty around your (1) role and responsibilities, (2) deliverables, (3) timetable, (4) authority, (5) interactions, and (6) access to essential resources.

Land Mine 3: Personal

Personal land mines are the ones that you bring to the new job. They are activated when significant gaps exist in your strengths, motivation, or fit for the job. Often executives assume that their strengths are well matched to a particular role, when in fact they are not. Assumptions about strengths usually are based on prior success without a true in-depth assessment of the match between strengths and the particular situation. Although a new job may sound like your former job, there will be a whole new range of dynamics that may require significantly different skill sets. By missing this factor, leaders often fail to realize that they may not possess certain strengths that are essential for success in the new role. But this is not you.

After years of working at large consumer product companies, Alice moved to Silicon Beach in Santa Monica, California, to join a start-up social networking site as the chief marketing officer. She was thrilled to be moving into a “hot new company,” and she was thrilled with her promotion in title. Alice was hired to bring her experience in traditional marketing to the start-up. On her first day in the job, she called the marketing team together to ask for the market research studies, the most recent membership feedback, focus group results, the brand positioning strategy, and the current marketing strategy and category spend. She was shocked that none of that existed in the typical format and depth that she had grown accustomed to, if at all.

Alice knew that she had to make quick decisions on some key marketing areas, but she had no idea how to do that without her traditional tools or how to motivate a staff that was far different from the traditional marketing staff that she had worked with in the past. She struggled with the entrepreneurial environment and discovered that just being an expert in brand management was not enough to survive in a fast-paced, broken-field-run start-up. She struggled in almost everything she did and soon realized that the hot new company was not a fit for her motivations, her strengths, or her basic temperament. “I had the marketing skills, but I did not have any clue about the skills required in a start-up environment,” she said.

Deactivation method: Ask yourself the tough questions about whether you really have the strengths, motivation, and fit required for success.

Land Mine 4: Relationship

If you fail to identify, establish, or maintain key relationships up, across, or down, you will encounter relationship land mines (There may be clusters of these, and they can set each other off in succession; watch out!). These key relationships are those that have a stake in or can impact your success. These stakeholders can be found up, down, or across the organization from you.

When you miss the needs or agendas of other key stakeholders or outside influencers, there is a good chance that some impact will be felt. The problem is you won't necessarily know that this has started to happen, but it can get a life and a momentum of its own outside of your presence or even awareness. If you lend an insufficient or ineffective effort to building a productive teamwork environment with direct reports, land mines are often the result. If expectations of up stakeholders are not clearly understood, go unchecked, or frequently change, this is certainly dangerous territory for land mines. Finally, poor preparation and communication follow-through are often key culprits in activating these land mines.

Relationship land mines catch many executives completely unaware. These are especially tricky because sometimes the results of stepping on one do not show up for months, or longer. What is worse, you can get caught by these land mines just by pure neglect of a key stakeholder or someone who you didn't even know should be a key stakeholder: “I was just too busy to reach out to her.” “He has a role in all this? He's just the head of investor relations!”

Relationship risks are particularly severe for people who are brought in as change agents. Often those people come in with a hero mentality, thinking they are the organization's savior. This is not necessarily a problem and sometimes they're right. The problem occurs when new leaders act as if they are saviors. Nobody wants to see that, especially those who have been part of the situation that needs saving. Don't be a savior. Be a team leader. History is littered with many dead heroes who never made it home.

Sebastian came into the organization to create a new ventures group. He mapped out most of the key stakeholders and was building relationships with them. After a while, it became apparent that Suri, the head of another division, was undermining his efforts. Sebastian did not understand why, because he had never come in contact with Suri.

Eventually, Sebastian learned that Suri was upset that he had not seen her as important enough to establish a relationship with early on. She watched as he built relationships all around her and left her out. She felt he was purposely snubbing her. Suri was upset, not because of something Sebastian had done or said, but because he had not said anything to her at all. Her efforts to undermine him were an immature way of showing her disappointment, but she wanted him to know that she could make things difficult for him. Sebastian overlooked her when he built his key stakeholder list and it cost him months later.

Deactivation method: Activate a 360-relationship compass and use it to help guide you to potential challenges and land mines.

Land Mine 5: Learning

Fail to grasp key information in any of the 5Cs—customers, collaborators, capabilities, competitors, or conditions—and you have effectively created learning land mines. Executives often miss the importance of certain Cs or diminish the importance of one or more. If you don't have a learning plan in place for each and every C, the likelihood of undetected land mines greatly increases.

If you don't know what you need to know or—worse yet—don't know what you don't know, then land mines will surely be plentiful. So what do you need to know? At the very least, you need to know critical information about each of the 5Cs, especially about the real value chain of your business. If you use our guidelines for your 5Cs analysis, the information you gather will significantly diminish the risk of learning land mines.

Learning is essential. Being perceived as wanting to learn is almost as important as learning itself. You have heard it before: “Seek first to understand,”⁴ “Don't come in with the answer,”⁵ and “Wisdom begins in wonder.”⁶ You hear it repeatedly in many different ways, because it is proven advice. Heed it. You need to learn and you'll want to be perceived as being hungry to learn.

Harold joined a company that was helping companies take advantage of favorable tax treatments for new technologies. He had done his homework well across most of the 5Cs. He liked the team. They liked him. He knew exactly how he could add value to the group and to its customers. What he had failed to learn about was that the government was about to change the law and take away the favorable tax treatments. So, a few months into the job, the company effectively got legislated out of business.

Deactivation method: Activate an ongoing learning campaign to thoroughly master the 5Cs.

Land Mine 6: Delivery

In the end, it boils down to delivery. It's not what you do; it's the results you deliver. If you deliver, the organization can tolerate many other faults. If you are leading a team, you cannot deliver if the team does not deliver. At the end of your first 100 days, the most dangerous land mine is failing to build a high-performing team fast enough to deliver the expected results in the expected time frame.

Steve was hired as the head of business development for a venture-backed technology company that had developed a cutting-edge digital rights management (DRM) software. Steve was excited about the opportunity because he knew that the technology was one of the best and the market was screaming for such a DRM product that was easy and reliable to use. Steve's main priority was to enter into long-term agreements with the major entertainment studios.

Steve made inroads with the studios quickly, but he became frustrated by their notoriously slow movement. While keeping his eye on the studio business, he began to concentrate on other industries that required DRM technology and was able to secure a strong deal flow.

A year later Steve was fired after a meeting with the venture capital company. Although Steve was pleased with his inroads at the studios, he had not yet closed any deals with a major entertainment firm. He felt that the deal flow from other industries compensated, but he didn't understand that his up stakeholders thought he was concentrating 100 percent on studio business, which had far greater potential than the other industries that Steve had mined. He delivered, but he delivered off strategy.

Deactivation method: Identify clear and genuine winning deliverables and timetable. Validate with key stakeholders. Empower and execute with the team.

Land Mine 7: Adjustment

You can do everything correctly to this point, but if you do not see or react to the inevitable situational changes, then new land mines will certainly be created. The act of planning and managing is not a static exercise. You must be keenly aware of the fluid dynamics of your team's situation. Missing the need to survey the environment constantly and adjust accordingly is just like a skipper setting sail for a destination and never adjusting his or her sails for the ever-changing seas and weather conditions.

Things change and you and your team need to change when they do. Sometimes you can get away with minor adjustments. Sometimes a complete restart is required. The risk lies in not seeing the need to change, not understanding how to change effectively, or in being too slow to react to the changes you do see.

Tony was hired by Victor to run the operations of the division that Victor headed. Tony reported directly to Victor and soon after joining, he realized that the division was significantly underperforming. Tony embraced the challenge and made great gains in operational efficiencies in a short time; but while operations were improving, other aspects of the division continued to falter. As a result, Wendy, one of Victor's counterparts from a sister division, was promoted to head both divisions. So now, Tony was reporting to Victor, who was reporting to Wendy. Tony thought that this move represented no big change for him.

He was wrong. He was sure that Victor would represent his work to Wendy, and he assumed that his style and approach would be embraced because it was producing results. What he did not know was that Wendy's division had been run under a completely different operational style and her division's results were far stronger than Victor's ever had been.

For Tony, the new reporting structure was a sea change, indicating that a huge adjustment was required. Tony underestimated the magnitude of the change, and therefore it never crossed his mind that a “huge adjustment” might be required. Any change in structure requires a relook at what is going on, if not a complete restart. Tony did not do that. He kept soldiering on, assuming that Victor would make his case to Wendy.

Two months later Victor and everyone he had brought in to work for him, including Tony, were fired.

Deactivation method: Monitor business conditions, results, and organization changes actively. Understand the causes and implications of change. Replan and execute quickly.

You've got a choice. You can leverage our suggested approach to uncover and help you assess and mitigate those risks. Or, you can send us an e-mail later saying, “I wish I'd read this chapter before I accepted that job!” You won't be alone.

Organizational Risk

When looking to identify organizational risk, be sure to assess risk elements across the 5Cs: customers, collaborators, capabilities, competitors, and conditions. The good news is that you probably have a significant head start on understanding many of these, or you wouldn't even have been considered for the job. But do not rely on what you think you know.

The goal is to build an understanding of customers, collaborators, capabilities, competitors, and conditions to help you understand the organization's strengths and weaknesses. Tool 1.3 provides more detailed guidance for your 5Cs analysis. Go through the exercise and use these thought starters to see what new things you can learn. Here are some headlines about the 5Cs to help trigger insightful questions for you to ask.

1. Customers: First line, customer chain, end users, influencers
2. Collaborators: Suppliers, allies, government/community leaders
3. Capabilities: Human, operational, financial, technical, key assets
4. Competitors: Direct, indirect, potential
5. Conditions: Social/demographic, political/government/regulatory, economic, market

The main questions you should answer with the 5Cs analysis are:

1. What is the organization's sustainable competitive advantage?
2. Are there any risks with the current Customer base?
3. Are there any risks with relationships with significant Collaborators of the organization?
4. Does the organization have the Capabilities required for long-term success?
5. Do Competitors pose significant risks to the viability of the organization?
6. Are there any outside Conditions that will impact the viability of the organization?

See Tool 1.4 on situational assessment for a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis.

Role Risk

The main questions you should answer here are:

1. Did anyone have concerns about this role, and if so, what was done to mitigate them?
2. Why does the position exist? Why did the organization need to create it in the first place?
3. What are the objectives and outcomes? What are you supposed to get done? By when is it supposed to be done?
4. What will the impact be on the rest of the organization? What kind of interactions can you expect with key stakeholders?
5. What are your specific responsibilities, including decision-making authority and direct reports?

To mitigate the first risk (internal concerns about the role), you should:

1. Find the people who had concerns.
2. Understand those concerns.
3. Understand what has changed to make those concerns go away.
4. Believe those people will support the role (and you) going forward, but keep a close eye on their actions to verify.

To mitigate the remaining risks and understand key elements about the role itself, you should ensure that the key stakeholders:

1. Are aligned around the role's reason to exist.
2. Understand and are in agreement with the objectives of the role.
3. Understand the impact that the role will have on them and the organization.
4. Are clear on the responsibilities of the role.
5. Understand the interdependencies that the role requires and that their relevant constituents will have the elements of the new role communicated to them in an appropriately thorough way.

Personal Risk

The main questions you should answer here are:

1. What, specifically, about me, led the organization to offer me the job?
2. Is this the company and role that can best capitalize on my strengths over time?
3. Will I look forward to coming to work three weeks, months, or years from now?
4. Where do my preferences fall along the BRAVE scale?
   • Use Tool 1.1 to record your own personal BRAVE preferences. Will I fit with the culture?
   • Use Tool 1.1 to assess how you think the new organization rates (based on what you know now) along the BRAVE preferences.
   • Compare and contrast your preferences to those of the organization to determine fit.

The objective is to understand how closely your strengths, motivation, and fit match what is required to deliver the expected results. Knowing what you know, would you hire yourself for the job? If your assessment indicates that there might not be a fit, you should seriously consider walking away. Executives often convince themselves that they can make themselves fit but that approach rarely works.

In your efforts to understand these risks, you'll want multiple potential sources of information. You'll need scouts and spies to help you. Scouts are people outside the company who can give you a view of what's going on inside the company. Spies are people on the inside who can give you special insight into the organization and its environment. Look to these allies for supplemental information across the 5Cs to round out your understanding of the situation.

Now What?

You've gathered your information. You've analyzed it and thought about it. Now what do you do? Categorize the risk as low, manageable, mission crippling, or insurmountable and then take appropriate action.

• If the overall risk is low, move forward—keeping your eyes open for things you've missed or things that change.
• If the risk is manageable, move forward, managing the risks as you go.
• You cannot succeed in the face of a mission crippling risk until you've figured out how to mitigate the risk. The critical judgment in this exercise is separating manageable risk from mission crippling risk.
• If the risk is insurmountable, a mission crippling risk that cannot be mitigated, walk away.

Note you'll find some additional thoughts on risk mitigation and negotiating as well as an onboarding risk calculator at www.onboardingtools.com.