When A CEO Gets It Right…
…He gets it right. Thanks to Sean Percival (and many others, but I saw his link first), I just read Reed Hastings blog post announcing the separation of the Netflix streaming and DVD subscription services into two different companies. I understand and appreciate the decision, but that's not why I'm prompted to write this late night post. For me, the most important part of Hastings' post was his mea culpa:
I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation.
…
In hindsight, I slid into arrogance based upon past success. We have done very well for a long time by steadily improving our service, without doing much CEO communication. Inside Netflix I say, "Actions speak louder than words," and we should just keep improving our service.
But now I see that given the huge changes we have been recently making, I should have personally given a full justification to our members of why we are separating DVD and streaming, and charging for both. It wouldn't have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.
Go, read the rest of Reed Hastings' blog post. Then slip back over here; I'll be waiting.
Hey, welcome back.
How about that. A CEO who listens to his customers, owns his mistakes when makes them, and pledges to do better. A CEO who speaks clearly and plainly about his plans for his company, explaining his intentions without defending them.
That's customer service, baby. And it's just done more for my loyalty to Netflix than depth of catalog, quality of streaming, or any other enhancement of service they might come up with… because that blog post helped me want to stick around to see what they'll do next. That post made me want to support Netflix with more than my monthly dollars.
Reed Hastings' post is a textbook example of how to turn customers into evangelists. I wish more CEOs would publicly acknowledge their missteps. Customers are far more likely to forgive when they have a clear understanding of what lead to the thing that upset them. Hastings' post is an example of the ethical / philosophical approach I've somewhat unimaginatively called being human.
All too often, I've seen hubris, fear and insecurity demonstrated by the "leaders" of a company lead directly to declines in internal and external morale, in vision, in growth and in revenue. It's so very nice to see a CEO buck that trend, because that kind of strength of character is often directly tied to the long-term strength of their company.
Matthew Wayne Selznick - Telling stories with words, music, pictures and people.
