Netflix’s Keeper Test
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” and I’ve felt the truth of that statement during my four-year stint as CTO/Team Lead on various projects AntonX. Let’s face it — I haven’t been the maestro of culture-building (maybe a little better than our rivals, but who’s keeping score?). However, I’ve had an epiphany recently and decided it’s time to turn the ship around. As we set our sights on 2024, one of our primary goals at AntonX is to forge a culture of excellence that’ll make waves in the industry.🚀
I’ve been diving into the world of team and culture lately, soaking up knowledge from all corners. Guess what caught my attention? The Keeper Test from Netflix, which I stumbled upon during Lenny’s awesome podcast with Elizabeth Stone (CTO Netflix). Now, let me give you the lowdown on this keeper’s test. 🕵️♂️
I’ve been recently studying, listening a lot about team & culture and just came-up with Keeper Test by Netflix through Lenny’s recent podcast with Elizabeth Stone (CTO Netflix). Here is a quick summary into the keeper’s test.
If you want to build a strong culture of excellence then keeping talented and motivated team members; and freeing up Slackers and Brilliant Jerks would be a key ingredient to focus on continuously.
- All Managers would ask themselves the following: “Which of my people, if they told me they were leaving for a similar job at a competitor or peer company would I fight hard to keep?”
And/Or:
- All team members would ask their managers: “If I told you I was leaving the company to work for a competitor, how hard would you fight to keep me and try and convince me to change my mind?”
If you are a manager and you wouldn’t fight for someone to keep it on your team, then he/she is taking up the space of “A” player and need to replaced ASAP.
And same goes for you if you think your manager won’t fight for you to keep you on his/her team based on performance, then it’s a good time to switch.
I’ve been personally doing this very recently as a CTO and had to cut down a good size of our team, not in the exact same way but somehow similar since I didn’t know much about the Keeper test by Netflix by then.
Character moves:
Here are the character moves suggested by Lorne:
1. Apply the “keeper test.” If you’re a leader, be honest… Be respectful. Who would you fight for? Be ambivalent about? Or wish they’d just disappear? At minimum, if you have anybody outlined on the “disappear list,” can you imagine how he or she must feel working for you? Kindly and respectfully give them a generous severance. Their replacement, assuming you know how to attract “A” talent, will give you a 10 fold productivity increase in return. And of course you will soon ask yourself why it took so long to make the decision. (Btw, do not fight to keep “brilliant jerks.” They get results but the cost to the culture is usually way too much. These so called “brilliant” people are more easily replaced than you might think).
2. As an employee, have the self-accountability and courage to ask your boss the “keeper test” and expect an honest response. Now you’re on the receiving end of №1 above. How does it feel to be on that side of the equation? How do you wish your boss would respond? Don’t you wish your boss would be letting you know where you stand regularly so that you didn’t have to ask the “keeper test” and/ or knew well in advance what the answer would be?
3. Remember that “stars” can hit a rough patch too… Just like great organizations sometimes do. They deserve a near term pass, reasonable loyalty, and we don’t want to give up on people without understanding context. However, as they say at Quicken Loans, “The trend needs to be your friend.” If you’re performance is trending continuously downward, well you should not be surprised if things end unhappily. What you and I did “great last year” only lasts for a while. The trend has to be “up” in terms of value and contribution, or no one will fight to keep us.
