I came across this internal Netflix presentation on freedom & responsibility as a business culture on TechCrunch this morning and it struck a cord with me and many others.
The most interesting part for me (and presumably the rest of my organization) is the costs and benefits process during the growth phase of a company. The Netflix executives who made this presentation argue that process-driven cultures, while effective at creating order from chaos, stifles and eventually drives away talented individuals.
I would argue that even in an organization composed entirely of super-talented individuals there will always be some level of chaos. You will always want a process for deploying a brand new enterprise website, for instance, because the site needs to be deployed uniformly in order to be successful. If you just let your two super-talented IT people do it their own way then you could have a disaster. Process helps ensure that there will be some consistency and order in any key activity, regardless of the talent-level of the people participating.
The bits about process aside, the entire presentation is fascinating - and everyone should read it. I've embedded the presentation below.
So what are your thoughts? Is Netflix right? Does process stifle talent?
Update: One of the commenters on the original TechCrunch linked to a Glassdoor post former Netflix employees reviewed their experiences with the company and offered an alternative point of view (that of the employee.)
