Talking about one of his business failures, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings shared how they got into the mess and what they’ve done since to make better decisions (bold emphasis is mine).
“We didn’t do much farming for dissent in those days. So I was messianic, convinced this is the right move, looking around the corner. And it turned out that lots of people had severe doubts, but they didn’t know the other executives had doubts.
So the thing we instituted is on big decisions, we make everyone say 10 to -10, whether they think it’s a smart idea. And so if we had done that at the time, we would’ve seen a whole tons of -7, -6, -8, and then that would’ve been shocking. And so establishing a clear input mechanism on big decisions, and we’d have the top 50 or 100 people weigh in on it, is a very positive step.”
This is interesting for a number (pun intended) of reasons.
- A number forces people to reflect on how much they like or dislike the idea.
- A number gives you a fast path to extremes - what do these people know that others may not?
- A number means you can have a conversation about what would make a -7 turn into a -3, not to convince people, but to understand the factors that underpin their rating.
And, by asking the question, you normalise doubt.
Medical staff ask us to rate pain from 1-10, and I’ve done something similar in the past when trying to understand where stakeholders sit in relation to a project (you can see a clip on my Stakeholder Matrix here).
But such ratings are only helpful if used to start a conversation, they’re not in and of themselves helpful.
What about you? Have you used rating processes in this way before?
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