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- At a time when Uber is weathering a new round of HR troubles, and Google is seeing employee revolts, Patty McCord's advice seems more pertinent than ever.
- McCord is Netflix's former chief talent officer — the person who helped hire Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, who has become one of Hollywood's most powerful figures.
- She says HR execs have to stop worrying about lavish employee perks, and start thinking more about how they can make a difference to the bottom line — just like every other department.
- Asked about handling the employee revolt at Google, McCord says "I might go: 'okay, quit.'"
If the events of the past couple of years have taught us anything, it’s that if company leaders treat human resources as an afterthought, then they risk running into troubles like those of Uber.
Patty McCord — former Netflix chief talent officer, and the co-architect of the streaming video company's famous corporate culture policy — has some thoughts on the proper way to run an HR department.
Had McCord not helped Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings piece together his original management team, we might all still be standing in line to rent movies. Or worse. We might still be forking over late fees.
During her 14 years there, Netflix's management team included Barry McCarthy, now Spotify’s CFO, and Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer and one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood. These are some of the people who helped Netflix prevail in home video over the much larger distributor, Blockbuster.
Since departing Netflix in 2012, McCord has become a sort of sage for startup founders and human resources execs, coming in as a consultant. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg turned McCord's famous Netflix culture document into a sacred text for startups when she said it "may well be the most important document ever to come out of the Valley."
In her book, “Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility” McCord has included a lot of advice that seems more pertinent than ever.
In two recent interviews with Business Insider, McCord speaks frankly about the lack of innovation in Silicon Valley HR departments, and the need to sometimes say 'no' to employees. She also offers some encouragement and advice to startup founders and job seekers.
SEE ALSO: Here's the memo Uber's CEO sent after the company's chief HR officer resigned following an internal investigation
Job seekers: Don't be passive about the process. Do your due diligence about potential employers.
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McCord has interviewed thousands of people for jobs, but she hasn't forgotten what it's like to be the applicant. She says one of her worst career decisions was taking a job at a certain software company, so she could stay closer to her home and children.
"I’m a recruiter so I made them want me," she said. "I spent so much time and energy convincing them that I was the one, that I spent almost no time finding out who they were."
That would cost her. Her new employer put her desk right outside the men's bathroom. They gave her an outdated Wang 286 computer and a rotary phone.
Then came her first meeting with her new boss.
"She said, 'You know, Patty, you have a lot of ideas and we’ve had them all, and they don’t work so it would be really helpful if you’d just stop having them. You know you’re making the other people uncomfortable. You’re too aggressive and you know [HR is] here to make the rules and make sure that everybody follows them.'"
But that disaster would lead her into two important areas that would help shape the rest of her career.
See every job, no matter how unpleasant, as an opportunity to learn.
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Though McCord didn't find much satisfaction at that job, it was there that she learned a lot about computer engineers and how they think. That was good, she said, because she would over the years eventually need to hire scores of them.
"Because it was so awful I had to find solace somewhere," McCord said of her time at the company. "So, I discovered software engineers and I just started hanging out with them all the time."
The experience meant she "discovered my love for technologists and technology." From there, she would follow one of her bosses to a startup that made software tools for other software engineers.
"By that time I had a little geek cred, and I went to Pure Software and that's where I met Reed [Hastings]," who founded Pure, and would go on to become the founder of Netflix.
In interviews, the best thing to be is sincere.
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McCord remembers interviewing Ted Sarandos back when Netflix was exclusively a DVD-by-mail business.
Sarandos has become a star at Netflix, rising to the role of chief content officer. Along with Hastings, Sarandos is the architect of Netflix's film-production strategy, which has made the company less dependent on Hollywood, even as its original movies and TV shows become huge hits in their own right. Now, Sarandos hobnobs with the biggest names in film and TV.
But back in 2000, Sarandos was a vice president at a chain of video-rental stores and seemed the unlikeliest of future movie moguls when he interviewed with McCord. But she remembers he had two attributes that stood out from the other candidates.
"So, I had been interviewing people for Ted’s job," McCord recalled. "And they were just nauseating. All they did was name drop. I remember one guy said,: 'Yeah I just came down from the city and I was having lunch with Francis Ford Coppola and yesterday I was out at Lucas Ranch cause George (Lucas) and I are like this.' I looked at him and said 'I slept with Bill Gates.' And he said 'Did you?' And I go, 'No, but you didn’t have lunch with Coppola either. Why are we having this stupid conversation?"
Sarandos took a different tact.
"I finished interviewing Ted and we're standing in the hallway waiting for Reed to get out of a meeting," McCord recalled. "And Ted’s telling me that his son is going to his first dance and I go 'Oh man, are they going to disco? And then Ted starts singing Disco Duck and we’re dancing in the hallways. Reed comes out and says 'Oh, you guys have met.' Ted is sincere and genuine."
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
