Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
That question is Netflix's keeper test. If the honest answer is relief, the role would probably be better filled by someone else, and the conversation should have happened sooner. The test keeps the bar high so that nobody stays only because they are already there.
People often hear it as the moment someone is let go, but it gets used just as often to talk about how extraordinary a person is. An employee can ask a manager how they are doing on the keeper test, and most of the time the reply is that the manager would fight hard to keep them. That is followed by a walk through their strengths, where they have had the most impact, and how they could be even better.
The harder version is telling someone they are not passing right now. In some cases there is a path to get there, with feedback and milestones attached. In others the team has really tried and sees no path to success.
Either way, the question is an entry point to a conversation that forces a tough talk instead of shying away from it. Recognition is part of keeping great talent, so the test works as a check on how things are going as much as a warning.
Where did the keeper test come from?
The keeper test appeared in the 2009 Netflix culture slide deck, which Reed Hastings and Patty McCord helped write and which spread widely across the tech industry. The deck framed it as a question for managers about which people they would fight hard to keep if they announced a departure. Hastings and Erin Meyer described the test at length in their 2020 book No Rules Rules. The same deck stated that adequate performance gets a generous severance package.
Why does a high bar matter for a whole team?
Researchers Will Felps, Terence Mitchell, and Eliza Byington reviewed the evidence on difficult team members in a 2006 chapter in Research in Organizational Behavior. They concluded that a single negative member can drag down a whole group's performance and mood. Teammates tend to respond to the person's behavior by withdrawing or mirroring it. The review is the source of the popular phrase about one bad apple spoiling the barrel.
Why do managers avoid hard conversations?
The 2002 book Crucial Conversations, by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler, made the case that people avoid high-stakes talks because they fear damaging the relationship. The authors found that the avoidance usually makes the problem larger. Delayed feedback also leaves the other person with less time to change course. The book has sold millions of copies and is a standard text in corporate training.
More from Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
