XA Podcast 020 | Resilience, Change And Culture With Shweta Shukla | People And Talent Series

Netflix has a unique approach to people and culture that is well-known across the world. How did it maintain its strong culture through hyper-expansion? And what are some of the lessons in that for growth-stage founders?

Discussion Topics: Resilience, Change and Culture with Shweta Shukla

• A bit about The Culture Gram
• Insider perspectives on Netflix culture
• How Netflix maintained culture through growth and across geographies
• How to take care of people while scaling
• Importance of technology in managing talent
• People-related advice for founders

Transcript: Resilience, Change and Culture with Shweta Shukla

Belinda Ong: It is our honour to host Shweta Shukla, as our guest speaker for this month’s XA Fireside Chat. In her most recent corporate stint, Shweta was head of HR for Netflix in APAC, and was part of the early management team in the region, leading a 50-strong talent organisation. Most of us know Netflix because of its ability to stream content instantly to any device. But the company has also built a reputation for approaching people and talent in unique ways. They have a philosophy focused on trusting people, not policies, rewarding candour, and throwing away the standard playbook. Prior to Netflix, Shweta led HR for Meta AKA Facebook, across APEC. And she recently founded The CultureGram, a platform for honest conversations about culture, the future of work, leadership, identity and embracing differences. We would also like to thank our interviewer, Sergio Salvador, for joining us today. Sergio is the Chief People Officer at Carsome, Southeast Asia’s largest integrated car ecommerce platform. Prior to joining Carsome, Sergio led Egon Zehnder technology practice across APEC to guide talent innovation for start-ups and established digital and media companies. Before Egon Zehender Sergio led new business innovation for Google. Shweta and Sergio, thank you so much for joining us today to lead a discussion regarding people and talent, resilience, change and culture.

Belinda Ong: So Shweta, first of all, you are now yourself a founder. Tell us a little bit about what you’re working on now, what this means for you, and how is your transition from Netflix to doing your own business.

Shweta Shukla: Thank you for that kickoff question Belinda, I often pinch myself and think, is this really happening? You know, transitions are interesting things and maybe a year back, there was no Culture Gram on the horizon. I was busy getting work done. But there were some thoughts that were going through my mind in terms of the idea of having a platform for honest conversations about things around culture, people, as well as the future of work. And we did have a small group internally within the companies I worked in, I had like-minded people who joined those conversations. But when I got the opportunity of doing something myself, I said, Okay, let’s do it. And like, a lot of you out there who probably have started something new you know, there were a lot of things that were going through my mind when I was taking this off, is it going to be relevant? Is it going to be useful? Will anybody else really care about this? And I did have all of those thoughts. But ultimately, I thought, if I love something, I have to give that gift to the world. And that’s what I’m trying to do.

And so this is the process of doing that very, very early stage. And it really makes you realise how many different skills you need to develop when you start doing something on your own because you’re doing everything by yourself and you do have well-wishers, you do have friends who help you. But there are a lot of different things that you need to grow into. So I’m learning I’m on a massive steep learning curve at this point in time. But it is also good to build something.

Sergio Salvador: And there’s been a lot being written about the uniqueness of the approach towards people and talent at Netflix. And I’m wondering if you can share a little bit of your experience with us from the moment you joined the company, how you saw it, how you experienced it, but also, what was the evolution that happened while you were there?

Shweta Shukla: Thank you Sergio and you are right, absolutely, the power of culture is so strong, that you still feel you’re part of a broader ecosystem. And so it’s interesting, you know, Netflix came into Asia, about six years back already, but more than that, and as a practising HR professional, had always heard about the culture memo. I had read books about it, it was something that we were fascinated about. But little did I ever imagine that I’ll actually get an opportunity to be part of the co-creation of that and working within that environment. So when that happened, I was at Meta, and don’t lose Tony, who’s also on the call was already at Netflix, and a few others reached out to me and said, Hey, we’re building something in Asia, do you want to come on board and like, wow, this is a great opportunity to not only practise the art, and science of my discipline, but to actually study such an interesting organisation in such close quarters.

And my learnings were a few, which I’ll share, and I’m sure everybody takes a bit different things that while there was a very exciting vision, there was a growth plan, and Netflix still is growing significantly doing a lot of innovative things that were the draw to the company, and not just for me as a talent professional, but also for a lot of people in the business side was how Netflix did things or does things, and the culture was a massive draw for people to come and work there. And a huge amount of time that was spent in our interviews and we were hiring people and all of that was around the culture. So very centrally, culture was not just about how we did things internally, culture was a massive draw, and always an inspiration to people who came and actually worked there. So that was something which was very different and unique about Netflix, as much as they talked about the business they also talked about the culture of the company, and Reed, who’s the founder, CEO, who still practices that very, very closely, will take every opportunity to interact and not only talk about how we are doing as a business, but really, really focus on things that sometimes and actually not going right within the culture.

So if culture is an evolution, and Reed talks about that, pretty interestingly is that while the Netflix culture got built in the early days with things that were on Reed mind on Patty’s mind, and what was happening in the company and the ecosystem then, but as Reed joked that, you know, it was a bunch of engineers sitting together, building something tech, and then ultimately, it’s become an entertainment company. So with lots of diversity added in, it’s an evolving thing. And what I like is that they are unafraid to talk about what’s also not going right. And I think that’s something which I find to be very fascinating and interesting. And one aspect which they really, really focus on deeply, and I think is a bedrock of a lot of what actually goes right in the company, is the ability to be transparent, honest and open and in every aspect the way the business is run. So I had access or for that matter, any analyst would have access to so much information and context about how the company is run, what the business plans are, and what’s going to happen. And there was so much discussion around what was going right, what was not going right. I mean, I’ve worked in companies which are pretty open and transparent. This was next level stuff. I mean, the kind of information that the company trusts and shares with the employees is unbelievable. And that trust is actually reciprocated. Very rarely did we find, at least when I was there and I’m sure it’s still true that people will abuse that trust, and with that level of context, and understanding of where the company is going, what the team is trying to do, I think your ability to do your job is magnified. Because you’re not just working off just what a small piece of information, you’re working off a very broad context. But with that comes a lot of responsibility. And I think that’s something that goes hand in hand.

So, I can go on talking about it, but there are some things which are uniquely interesting. And the last thing I’ll mention Sergio and to also a lot of you who are founders yourself is the commitment towards this that the leadership team, and especially Reed has towards spending time on things that matter is huge. Now, I’ve worked in companies, which were the size of Netflix, when I’ve joined them, and even before, definitely the leadership team was vocal, was interested but the level of involvement that actually Reed had, especially in things which were new, new leaders, new people, new businesses, and the amount of personal time that he spent on it was incredible. And that was not because he thought that we would do wrong things that he didn’t trust us, it was actually because he wanted to learn from us and invest a lot in making us click, I haven’t seen that.

Sergio Salvador: Thank you, Shweta. I have a couple of questions that I would love to ask you in reference to this thing. I think the first one is, if you don’t mind going back a little bit, it is about transparency.  You said that, of course you were astounded by how deep the transparency went, but many companies have gone through the same route. And when they get to a certain size, the level of transparency goes down. How do you maintain it at Netflix?

Shweta Shukla: It was interesting because when you continue to get bigger and larger, your ability to share information gets harder simply because of the size and scale. And also, the relevance of everything to everybody is not the same. I will draw slight difference, there is something called transparency, which means that if I’m making a significant decision, I should be able to talk very openly about it in a town hall any decision, if I get a question, but the question really is that employees should not feel like there is information entitlement, there is a difference. So what happens is when you are a 50-member organization, everybody knows everything, what’s happening, what’s happening to my team, what’s happening to the next team, because you huddle, you talk, you talk about everything. And if you’re early to employee, you get used to that, but when the company gets bigger and bigger, you will not have that same level of interaction, that same level of cohesion. But what that doesn’t mean as the company is not transparent, they’re sharing. But I don’t have entitlement of information about every single thing, which means that just because when I was 100 employees all I used to know everything, and now we have 5000 people, I don’t know what that particular team is doing, that the company is non-transparent. That’s not right. Because the point is for anything that is important context for me to know will be shared. Anything that I have a question on, and if I ask the question will be responded to. But it’s simply impossible to scale that level of interaction. So I think there is an information entitlement and then transparency, let’s balance that.

Sergio Salvador: Fantastic. Thank you. And I think what you’re talking about again, the topic of culture that we already started discussing. And I would like to spend a little bit more time on that, if that’s okay. How does Netflix export culture to other regions, we have all seen examples of companies coming out of Silicon Valley, where the culture doesn’t necessarily translate that well, or they end up with problems. Netflix seems to have a very fairly consistent approach, while being careful of local nuances, if you will, how does it work? What’s the secret?

Shweta Shukla: It’s interesting, because this is our lived reality, you know, when we were sort of expanding in the region. I will go back to the statement that Reed had actually once shared in a town hall, culture is ever evolving. Because it’s like this, let’s imagine that I have an employee based out of India or Japan or Korea. And there is this constant barrage of this is how we do things, this is exactly how you should do it. And then what happens it becomes a very top down type of sharing, because you’re like, listen, I have an identity. I have a national culture. I have a lived experience. And I want to relate to the culture, but I also have something to offer. So I think the interesting mix of things is that there are some core values like honesty, transparency, which transcend national cultures. Like, the fact that you should be honest and open and it transcends that. But what happens is like by operating, let’s say, in Europe, in different parts of the Middle East or in Asia, what you’re doing is you’re adding to the culture of the company and believe you me, when I joined the company, at that time Reed had opened up the culture memo to the large number of people in the company for edit. And actually as an evolution, we added a value of inclusion, which didn’t exist in the culture memo at that point in time. And that wouldn’t have happened, if the diversity of everything that we represented did not show up.

Sergio Salvador: Fantastic. So you’ve spent the end number of years with a company, and as you said especially at the beginning, there was a significant element of growing needs here in the region. What was your philosophy, your approach to bringing people into the company, especially in the context of the culture that you just described for us?

Shweta Shukla: It was obviously fundamental and very important to make culture a very important part of the conversation. It’s actually it’s interesting. Why did Reed, write the memo the way he did, he explains that in one of his conversations, and it’s very clear, when you’re trying to actually recruit somebody in the company, you talk to them about the job, this is what you’re going to do, this is what you might accomplish, and lots of things. But this also is a window of who we are, how we expect, what we expect from you, how we behave, what we do. And it gives you a very nice way for the other person to also decide whether this is the place I would enjoy and be in.

So it works both ways. I think the thing is, the more clarity you have around and communicate and make it part of the interview process, there is selection happening on both sides to say, am I going to enjoy being here? And the company is like, am I going to actually like to work here? And here’s the thing, nothing is foolproof, we made mistakes. There were some times we felt like we’re bringing somebody who was a great cultural fit it wasn’t. And so we had to learn from our mistakes as well. And you should constantly keep thinking about like, what is it that I did not do correctly when I was getting there, but the focus was never lost. Sergio, we never lost focus on the idea, we just learned in the process, how to get better at it.

Sergio Salvador: So in the process of scaling the company, the situation may be different because Netflix was already coming from the US where it was of a certain size, but I think the scalability of a business, by itself, is still something that is rather important for many of our members and our founders. Some of them are looking at doing exactly that, scaling their company. What is the secret formula? How did you manage to do that for Netflix?

Shweta Shukla: It’s interesting, I mean, scaling is something that I suppose everybody here is thinking about and more members, more customers, more markets. I think, fundamentally, you have to be ready to make some mistakes because you do know that when you’re actually trying to get into a new market or trying to get into a new environment, you are going to be able to get some things right early and then you’re going to make a ton of mistakes. And you have to learn from those mistakes very quickly. Because if there is a certain strategy, you can have a perfect strategy deck, and you can decide everything that you think the consumer is going to think like this, but they might think very differently. And so your early team has to be ready to read the signals very quickly and make changes.

I think that’s one of the things in scaling, which has been very helpful. And that also changed the way we hired right, as a talent organization, we made switches. Okay, we now figured out that this is actually what we need. And for Netflix, specifically, what I will say is one of the things and it’s there, I think one of the questions later, but I’ll mention it here is that, who understands the consumer psyche, the most the people who understand the lived experience of that consumer, who can actually understand what it is to be. And so therefore, for certain types of decisions, which are very consumer centric, we empowered a lot of the local teams, Netflix really empowered the local teams to make those decisions for certain things which required to happen at scale, where you can take insights and build at scale centrally, you can do that. Now, as a team, you have to always make a decision: what will you centralize, which you can scale globally, and what you really need to go deep in a market. And you have to do both. You can’t decentralize every single thing, and you can’t centralize everything. So that’s the other thing that also helped us make a decision. And it’s a fine balance between the two.

Sergio Salvador: So I’m curious to know, as well, this culture, this way of approaching the scaling of a business, how did they fare during the pandemic? I mean, arguably, every company had to find their own way and there were certain similarities. How did Netflix specifically deal with it to maintain the growth of the business but also take care of the people and continue scaling?

Shweta Shukla: I mean, it’s fascinating, I can talk from my own experience of what I went through. I remember this was early Jan, and the pandemic had just started, and it almost felt like we were sitting and we were thinking because it hit Asia before it hit the rest of the world. So imagine it started here very much it feels. And so it was interesting we sat down and we’re like, what is happening? Is it like SARS, maybe we need to and there were a few people who had gone through the SARS epidemic, and they were like, Okay, maybe we need to, so we really actually had no idea what we were dealing with, but what we did was we banded together as a group of people because we didn’t know what we were dealing with, we knew something was happening. This was also not understood by a global team at that point in time, because it was not present there. And so one of the jobs in Asia was to actually translate to the global team that listen, this is coming to Asia, this is going to be big, and they were lots of debates at that point in time as to how big, how severe, but what I liked about the Netflix scenario was that people were open to listening, nobody shut us down. I mean, there was a lot of back and forth, but they were open to listening. Ultimately, I think our culture really helped us work through the pandemic, because we already trusted our employees to do the right thing.

Flexible work environment was not something which was alien, for us, it was very, very open and we were doing that. But obviously, there is a reality, there is a certain part of our business, which is led by production very, very physically, you have to be available and present. And so what I found was massive innovation taking place in some of those teams as well, because the thing is how you have to operate in the new normal, where you physically have to be in contact, it’s not like you can’t, you can’t do everything virtually, but how you’re going to do it safely and carefully and in a way that feels right for our partners and for us, and our employees feel comfortable that was a big lift. So I mean, massive kudos to the team who figured out how to operate in that environment. And internally, I think our leaders learned something new. I’ve seen the side of leaders, which I’ve never seen before, right, you get to see their homes, you get to see their families, you get to see a side of them, which you’ve never seen before. And I think that was pretty refreshing.

Sergio Salvador: Fantastic. So on that note, it’s a great reminder that people are possibly the most important asset of any organisation. And I always avoid it, I move away from the whole kind of name of human resources, I find that a massive oxymoron because humans are not resources, in my opinion, but that lends on people, if we think about that, how important has been technology in your journey so far and specifically in your journey at Netflix?

Shweta Shukla: So I think one advantage, from what I’ve seen, and I’m going to marry it with technology and process a little bit. And I’ll tell you how one fits the other. One advantage of being at Netflix is it is a technology-driven organization. So it’s interesting, it’s an entertainment company. But it has a technology side, it has a video side and comes together, and it started as a technology platform. So there is a lot of tech and data, which is very central to what we do. And so what I found at Netflix was that we were able to use technology to do our work even during the pandemic very quickly, very easily. People have the ability to use that to make life easy. But I also think technology is not the only answer.

The answer to some of these things is simplification. Technology is an enabler. So what Netflix does really well and what I’ve seen a lot of companies that scale very well is that actually, they have less process. So even within the talent function, we just had less process, which gave me and my team time to spend on things that matter. And whatever process existed, we automated it. So ultimately, what was happening was the Talent Team was spending time with the people, which is actually our job, rather than sitting behind spreadsheets. And it was a function of both, we had great technology, but we also did not have unnecessary processes. So I’d say think about both.

Sergio Salvador: So we have discussed culture, we have discussed technology, we have discussed people hiring, bringing the culture to Asia, dealing with a pandemic on top of that you are now an entrepreneur yourself. And I’m curious now that you have seen both sides, if you will, you have seen the second side especially now what advice would you have especially for those early-stage founders in our audience when they start looking at their business with that people lens that is absolutely a must at some point what thoughts would you have for them?

Shweta Shukla: It’s a good question Sergio, and I am glad that you shared some of this I thought about this one because I was like this is something that hopefully will be useful. My entrepreneurial journey is very small, but one of the things that I’m doing these days is working with other entrepreneurs who have set up bigger-scale businesses, and I’m advising them a little bit. So I’m getting to that side of the world as well. And honestly, it’s a tough job. It’s an incredibly tough job to be a founder, you’re balancing so many things at so many levels, it’s unbelievable. Actually, get to see it.

A couple of things, one thing that I’d say when it comes to culture and people, you know, you’re growing business, you have to make your business viable, you have to spend huge amounts of time growing, thinking about your business, your investors, grow this existential survival thing which is very important, and it takes away a huge amount of your time. And the struggle sometimes is how much of my time can I actually spend on the culture, the people’s side, I know, it’s very important, but how do I do it, and there is that thing, so let’s keep it simple. And this is where I believe the simplicity mantra helps. You don’t have that much source time or energy at this point in time to even have a head of HR, have a big team, process, policies, and culture.

When you start doing simple things and one of the things I believe that people get attracted to, is the accountability that you can drive as a leader, believe whatever your values are, whatever you believe in, personally, and on the basis of which you founded the company and make sure that you’re holding whoever comes in place, accountable for those values. Because here’s what’s going to happen. There’s a live example, I was working with somebody recently, there was an incredibly important person that they had in their team who was driving a lot for the business, but they were immature, and now they were handling a lot of other things it was really difficult for this person to be able to scale without them, because hiring is very hard, what do you do, but the point is the overall damage that actually that can do to your company is immense.

So you really have to see what are your boundaries and where you will not let people cross them. Because what’ll happen is you will stop the traffic from the outside, people will see a toxic culture developing, and they will not come. And that’s a cycle. So that’s one thing that I’ll definitely put there. Sergio, do you want to ask something else? I have a couple of more. But do you want to add something to this one?

Sergio Salvador: No, this is good. If you’re happy, we can move on to the next one. And actually, I’m hoping for a recommendation from you. Specifically, I like to end these conversations by asking these questions, or two questions. This is the first one, it has to do with whether you have a recommendation for our listeners for our audience of a book that perhaps may have been, you have found interesting, or has made an impact on your recently.

Shweta Shukla: I’m going to disappoint you and all of your listeners because I watch a lot of content. And I do read but here’s the thing, I don’t read a lot of nonfiction, I do read a lot of fiction. And so if anybody’s interested, there is Sally Rooney, who’s an incredible young writer, she’s a young voice, and she’s done some incredible books, and I’ve been reading her and I find that sometimes age has absolutely nothing to do with the way you can actually express yourself.

And so if you’re a young founder and know that you can still spew a lot of wisdom so Sally Rooney is a great writer, I enjoy reading her. But outside of that, I will say that there are some pieces of content, which are really interesting. And I think what I’m seeing is there’s a huge surge in content created by women directors, women actors, and I think I’ve been watching a lot of that. So I would probably send a list to some of you who are interested in that. But I see that it’s some great work coming out there.

Sergio Salvador: Thank you Shweta and we will make sure to share it with the group. Well, finally, if anyone is interested in following you get in contact with you, is that a good place for them to see what’s going on with yourself on CultureGram?

Shweta Shukla: Sure, I would be delighted if people participated in my journey. And you can follow me on LinkedIn, and you can follow me on The Culture Gram, we have a LinkedIn page. I also have a podcast on Spotify and Apple podcasts, you can follow me there, it’s under the Culture Gram, and only our first episode is out. So more is coming. So hopefully it will be something which will be engaging and interesting for you. So I’d love for as many people to be interested. And also give me lots of feedback on what’s working and what’s not.

Sergio Salvador: Thank you very much Shweta we will make sure to pass that all as well.

Our Guest: Shweta

Shweta is the founder of The Culture Gram, a platform for honest conversations about culture, the future of work, leadership, identity and embracing differences. Prior to this, Shweta was head of HR for Netflix in APAC, and part of the early management team in the region, leading a 50 strong talent organization. Before that, Shweta led HR for Meta aka Facebook, across APAC