Netflix's Winning Formula

✍️ Coming up in today’s edition:

1. One quick win: Netflix & Google's “no blame” cultural initiatives

2. One proven system: Jeff Bezos’s decision-making framework

3. One million-dollar question: Ted William’s “Zone of Greatness”

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1. WHY A “NO BLAME” CULTURE IS A NON-NEGOTIABLE FOR ELITE TEAMS

Humans have an instinctive need to point blame when something doesn’t go to plan.

It’s not productive but it is human. It comes from a range of emotional reactions, such as anger, fear, disgust, sadness and surprise.

These are “avoidance” emotions which are programmed into our genetic structure to aid survival.

When an unpleasant or undesirable event happens, our bodies push out chemicals that generate feelings initially out of our control.

In companies, this plays out in a phenomenon called “Attribution Error”, where we are more likely to blame someone’s character when they make a mistake.

But when the shoe's on the other foot and we're in the wrong, we attribute the situation to circumstances, not character.

So next time a project isn’t going as expected, find out as much as possible about the circumstances surrounding the behaviour you’re noticing.

More often than not, you’ll find that it’s a matter of circumstance, not a fundamental character flaw.

The additional downside of seeking to blame someone is that it passes control of any solution to another party.

This is problematic for high-performing teams as you need people to respond well and look for solutions in times of challenge, rather than blame external stakeholders and factors.

The remarkable story of Britain’s most promising race driver - Billy Monger - is a great example of how to cultivate a “no blame” mindset 👇

Billy started racing at 6 and became British F4 champion by the age of 10.

In 2017, his life changed forever when he was involved in a devastating crash where two drivers ahead of him were battling each other.

The accident resulted in the amputation of both his legs.

In that moment, he could easily have blamed the other two racers that caused his worst nightmare.

But he didn’t.

• Billy started rehabilitation almost immediately so he could get back to racing.

• Billy partnered with Carlin Motorsports who built custom hand controls so Billy could fulfil his goal of returning to the track.

• Billy overturned the FIA ruling that had never allowed disabled drivers to race single seater cars.

In 2018, less than a year since his accident, he made history by winning a race in the British Formula 3 Championship at Oulton Park.

He became the first double amputee to win a single-seater race in the UK.

If you believe YOU control your fate like Billy, you and your team will be more successful.

Here’s how you can apply this thinking to your everyday in the business world 👇

• Netflix created ‘Freedom and Responsibility’

• Google created ‘20% Time’

Both initiatives encourage employees to take ownership and experiment without fear of failure or blame.

These practices show that trust and autonomy are key to creating a blame-free environment.

2. JEFF BEZOS’S DECISION-MAKING FRAMEWORK THAT SUPPORTED AMAZON’S HYPER GROWTH

Teams that win often make quick decisions.

Decision-making can become your superpower as a leader.

Your team culture and performance is a result of the decisions you make.

Who to hire, what projects to focus on, when to raise money… it all boils down to how you make decisions.

When I heard former President Barack Obama speak, the one big takeaway was how he would only need to be 51% confident in a course of action to then make the decision.

If you wait till 90%+ confidence, the upside of certainty fails to outweigh the benefits of acting sooner.

Jeff Bezos created one of the best decision-making frameworks in his 2015 Amazon shareholder letter 👇

Separate your decisions into two buckets:

1. Reversible decisions: Prioritise speed. Make informed choices quickly; speed matters more than perfection.

2. Irreversible decisions: Prioritise accuracy. Take your time to gather all necessary information; precision is crucial.

The less important a decision is, the less time you should spend looking for information to help you make that decision.

It’s also a reminder that most decisions you make are reversible so they’re not as important as you think. As such those decisions should be made quickly. Better to learn and be wrong than not learn and… not know if you’re right.

Second Order Effects:

When making your next decision, a good addition to the Bezos framework is to evaluate the “Second Order Effects”.

Every action has a consequence, and those consequences have consequences.

Think of it like a line of dominoes - it’s difficult to stop or reverse the cascade of cause and effect once the first domino is pushed over.

An example in practice 👇

A crucial decision that highlighted the need for this process was my first startup:

Decision: Should we expand into a new geographical market?

• +ve SO effect: Diversification of revenue streams which reduced our dependence on a single market.

• -ve SO effect: Stagnated revenue growth in the UK market as the exec team’s focus was on the new markets, causing culture to suffer in the primary market.

When you make any decision, write down 3x positive and 3x negative potential Second Order effects.

This process enables you to forecast at least some of the potential implications of your decisions before it’s too late.

3. WHAT IS YOUR ZONE OF GREATNESS?

Ted Williams is known as the greatest baseball hitter of all-time.

He had a batting average of .344, ranking him tied for seventh all-time in the major leagues.

But what is fascinating is that he was the last player in baseball to hit .400 back in 1941 (83 years ago 🤯)

With the advancements in physical training, technology and coaching, how has this record stood the test of time?

This was because he understood his zone of greatness.

The most important factor for a hitter is getting a good ball to hit.

So Williams divided the strike zone into 77 baseball-sized spaces, so he could understand which pitches yielded the highest odds of success for him:

• Patience and waiting for the right ball = 40% hit rate

• Impatience and swinging for the wrong balls = 23% hit rate

Waiting for a pitch in his zone of greatness significantly increased his chances of getting a hit.

Williams went on to hit 521 career home runs, won the American League Triple Crown twice, and was inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame in 1966, receiving over 93% of the votes to gain acceptance.

It is an important reminder to define your zone of greatness so you can increase your success rate.

Remember the Ted Williams story…

Average batters turned into great batters if they waited for the right pitch.

But the best batters turned into average ones if they swung at the wrong pitch.

MY FAVOURITE FINDS 🔗

For your performance:

• Why Olympic BMX cyclists started mindfulness training to alter their brain activity for race performance (mPeak program)

• 9x time management mistakes according to NYT best-selling book “Four Thousand Weeks” (Link)

For your team:

• 10x must-read books to improve your culture in 2024 (Link)

• This video of Sir Alex Ferguson after the Scottish Cup final victory shows how you set the team standards, no matter the outcome (YouTube)

For your health:

• 21 eating hacks from Dan Go as 80% of weight loss comes from nutrition 🤯 (Thread)

• 5x ways to stay fit, healthy and energised when working at a desk (YouTube)

Thanks!

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