From her many years working with companies that range from very large global tech companies to small very small innovative start-ups, Patty saw firsthand how companies can become slow and complacent, and employees become cynics and whiners. She spent 14 years at Netflix experimenting with new ways to work and making the Netflix culture deck become a reality for the people who work there. From abolishing performance reviews to challenging the need for policies, Patty believes people come to work as fully formed adults with a desire to make an impact and be proud of what they do and she’s on a mission to spread the word that we can do this differently.

In episode nine of "Experts Unleashed," Atlassian's Dom Price chats with Patty about unlocking performance, hiring the right skills, and the gift of feedback. They discuss why there are no “best practices” in performance management (and never were!), how “nice” feedback isn’t very nice, and why we need to be more intentional than ever before with meetings. Patty is a natural storyteller and spends the episode sharing all of her amazing stories with Dom!

They also discuss the "My User Manual" Play from Atlassian's Team Playbook. It's an exercise designed to help leaders share with their teams and teammates HOW they work. Think of it like this: when you buy a TV, it comes with a User Manual. But when you hire a human, there's no such helpful guidance. Patty takes us through her User Manual and shares why understanding how a person likes to receive feedback/recognition is so important.

More about Experts Unleashed

The world feels full of thought leadership and frameworks, when we’re actually hungry for lived experience, science, and pragmatic insights. Experts Unleashed seeks out amazing minds from their specialty fields and brings them to you, to unleash their wisdom in a way that will help you put it in action. Each episode aims to educate, provoke, inspire, and then activate… to give you the confidence to try someone new.

In this episode:

My User Manual Play: https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/my-user-manual
More about Patty McCord: https://pattymccord.com/
More on the World Central Kitchen: https://wck.org/

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

02:48 – Welcome the absolute legend, Patty McCord!

04:21 – What is Patty doing post-Netflix?

07:05 – Scaling up Netflix

14:40 – There are no best practices (and never were)

20:20 – Stop doing “stupid” things

25:20 – How do you measure performance?

28:20 – The hiring spectrum and the right people

33:10 – The skill of real feedback

39:08 – What’s happening in the modern work environment?

43:10 – A sensible compromise on work-from-home

50:02 – Avoid guilt-tripping and do more recognition

53:40 – One thing to try as a modern leader

56:20 – World Central Kitchen