Netflix Learned The Cost Of Silence

What happens when everyone on your team thinks the boss is wrong...but nobody says anything?

That’s exactly what happened at Netflix. In 2011, co-founder Reed Hastings made a decision that cost the company customers, millions of dollars, and a massive drop in stock price. The surprising part? Dozens of Netflix leaders suspected the decision would fail before it happened. They just stayed silent.

In this video, I break down the psychology of organizational silence, why smart employees don’t speak up even when leaders genuinely want feedback, and how Netflix turned one of its biggest failures into a leadership practice called “farming for dissent.” More importantly, I’ll show you how to apply the same idea to your own team.

Chapters:

00:00 You're boss just pitched a bad idea...what do you do?

00:17 What Netflix Did In 2011

01:22 The Mistake That Started It All

04:24 Research Calls This "Organizational Silence"

05:13 Reed Hastings' "Farming For Dissent"

06:45 The Lesson From The Mistake

07:21 Reed Hastings' "Socializing An Idea"

08:41 What I Hope For You

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One of the world’s leading business thinkers, David’s forward-thinking ideas and bestselling books are changing how companies approach leadership, teamwork, and collaboration.

An organizational psychologist and professor at Columbia University, Dr. David Burkus is the bestselling author of five books about business and leadership. His books have won multiple awards and have been translated into dozens of languages. Since 2017, David has been ranked multiple times as one of the world’s top business thought leaders. His insights on leadership and teamwork have been featured in the Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, CNN, the BBC, NPR, and CBS Mornings.

A former business school professor, David now works with leaders from organizations across all industries, including PepsiCo, Fidelity, Adobe, and NASA. David’s keynotes aren’t just entertaining and enlightening—they’re evidence-based and immensely practical, offering leaders at all levels a set of actionable takeaways they can implement immediately.

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