Every employee has some talent. When we’d been 120 people, we had some employees who were extremely talented and others who were mildly talented. Overall we had a fair amount of talent dispersed across the workforce. After the layoffs, with only the most talented eighty people, we had a smaller amount of talent overall, but the amount of talent per employee was greater. Our talent “density” had increased. We learned that a company with really dense talent is a company everyone wants to work for. High performers especially thrive in environments where the overall talent density is high. Our employees were learning more from one another and teams were accomplishing more—faster. This was increasing individual motivation and satisfaction and leading the entire company to get more done. We found that being surrounded by the best catapulted already good work to a whole new level. Most important, working with really talented colleagues was exciting, inspiring, and a lot of fun—something that remains as true today with the company at seven thousand employees as it was back then at eighty. In hindsight, I understood that a team with one or two merely adequate performers brings down the performance of everyone on the team. If you have a team of five stunning employees and two adequate ones, the adequate ones will sap managers’ energy, so they have less time for the top performers, reduce the quality of group discussions, lowering the team’s overall IQ, force others to develop ways to work around them, reducing efficiency, drive staff who seek excellence to quit, and show the team you accept mediocrity, thus multiplying the problem. For top performers, a great workplace isn’t about a lavish office, a beautiful gym, or a free sushi lunch. It’s about the joy of being surrounded by people who are both talented and collaborative. People who can help you be better. When every member is excellent, performance spirals upward as employees learn from and motivate one another.
Introducing the concept of “talent density”. This is a slight detour from my previous books as I sometimes like to take sometime to read such autobiographies from business leaders. I usually take insights from these books with a pinch of salt though, especially cause of the narrative fallacy.
Regardless, reading about “talent density” just makes so much sense, especially from my personal anecdotal experiences. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who left a company because there wasn’t free meals, well stocked pantry or great amenities. Instead, people start leaving when they observe “inequities”, especially when it comes to workload or their talent.
Whenever people feel like they are carrying an undue burden at work, the high performers tend to leave and this create a negative feedback loop where the ones who “get carried” stay in the company, causing even more high performers to quit. Sometimes, these “high performers” might not be considered high performers by senior management as well as they might get the job done but lack the ability to sell themselves.
This excerpt talks about how Netflix tried to break this feedback loop and create a positive cycle instead.
