How to build a smart and innovative government agency – abandon 19th century organisational principles

NetFlix has released its ‘manifesto’ detailing how they operate and why, a document that Facebook’s COO has described as “the most important document to ever come out of Silicon Valley” and that has attracted well over three million views on Slideshare.

It is the best document I’ve ever seen on building a smart and innovative organisation and has many lessons for government agencies, as well as for businesses, on how to set organisational goals, develop policy and select and manage staff – which I hope senior government leaders take on-board.

I equate this to the organisational equivalent of the NBN, compared to 1960s fax machines.

Organisations that learn from Netflix’s approach will be well-placed to address the challenges of modern society, being far more productive, effective and attractive to staff.

Whereas organisations that persist in applying a 19th Century organisational model designed for managing itinerant and illiterate workers undertaking repetitive manual tasks to 21st Century highly-education staff undertaking knowledge-focused outcomes will struggle to compete for talent and survival.