Fight Hard, Forge Ahead

Every business does two things.

First, a business decides what it should do. Scratch your own itch. Sell Bananas, take finances to the masses, or use sixteen years of experience to start a fashion line.

Reed Hastings’s Netflix founding moment was when his copy of Apollo 13 racked up forty dollars in late fees. “This shouldn’t happen,” Hastings thought. So, yada yada yada, he built Netflix.

But that yada yada yada was the best part. Hastings didn’t just build Netflix. Rather, he fought internal and external forces to make something great.

A successful business decides what to do through conflict. Peter Drucker wrote:

“Decisions of the kind the executive has to make are not made well by acclamation. They are made well only if based on the clash of conflicting views, the dialogue between different points of view, the choice between different judgments. The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement.”

Second, a business creates a culture so that after fighting, people come together.

“Reed Hastings created a culture where you’re free to ask questions, you’re free to push back – but support the outcome,” reflected early employee and 2020 appointed co-CEO Ted Sarandos, “Everyone has a strong voice at the table but once the decision is made everyone supports the outcome.”

Every business does these two things. They’re not easy and that’s why business is hard.

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