Fit

CHAPTER 7 FINDING THE RIGHT FIT

Understanding what drives us from the inside allows us to think strategically about our career choices so we can find a role, occupation or profession that meets our internal needs while using our bright-side skills and limiting the appearance of our dark-side derailers.

Netflix is an example of a company that really believes in getting the right person in the right role at the right time, and it is putting its money where its mouth is. Netflix has a policy of paying more money for ‘A-grade' people and paying larger bonuses — and, more unusually, it has a large pool of cash for redundancy. In a company like Netflix the technology and the market changes rapidly, which means that the skills necessary to do the jobs within Netflix today may not be the skills it needs tomorrow. Instead of trying to coax, cajole or review someone to a higher or new level of performance in their role, they simply move that person on.

In her article ‘How Netflix Reinvented HR', former chief talent officer Patty McCord gives the example of ‘Maria', who was originally hired in Netflix to help develop the streaming service. Her job was to find bugs in the new and evolving technology. She was fast, intuitive and hardworking. In time, however, the company figured out how to automate this process, her role changed and she started to flounder. Instead of instigating a traditional Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) where Maria and her manager would have an awkward and distressing ...