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A review by tbr_the_unconquered
How Google Works by Jonathan Rosenberg, Eric Schmidt
4.0
There is no one across the globe who does not use this site…Wait ! Strike that out ! Let me rephrase this as : The search engine of Google and its associated products and services are used by a wide variety of people across the globe barring mainland China. The topic of Google in China is now a major case study and not one which this review can hope encompass. The focus is here is on this small yet extremely impressive book about some of the inner workings of Google as viewed by Jonathan Rosenberg and Eric Schmidt. Both of them have been long term Google employees yet still maintained their outsider POV’s. I should tell you upfront that my perspectives on this book are almost solely motivated by what I have seen, heard and experienced around me in the professional environ.
The book is an overview of the business, people management and innovation practices that Google preaches and practices. While we might not really understand how Google 'works’from these pages, we do get to understand how Googlers work and what keeps them ticking in a generic way. Eric and Jonathan touch some of the basic management aspects with reference to running any large corporation in a seamless way which include the company’s way of handling recruitment, performance management, rewards and recognitions and building a vibrant work culture. The key differentiator between Google and any other company in the technology space is the nature of its workforce. In Eric and Jonathan’s lingo, these are called the ‘Smart Creatives’- highly adaptable, intelligent and a dynamic set of people who form the core of the company. Being on a totally different plane of performance, it also tends to be equally important to manage these star performers in the right fashion. Any manager you know will tell you that managing a star performer is a very dicey affair and one you have to put a lot of planning into. So you can imagine what it would be to have a company full of such performers. In the process of hiring and working with such a creative set of people, Google has also given the World a fair share of technology leaders the likes of Kevin Systrom, Marissa Meyer, Sheryl Sandberg , Andy Rubin and Nikesh Arora to name a few. When you have such visionary individuals working for you, them wanting to move on to try something different is exceptionally high.
My personal favorites from this book are two aspects of running operations in a a technology company : recruitment and communication. Most organizations do not have a huge chunk of problems, most problems that they have are the ones they hire. A wrong person in the wrong role will be the death of business as we know it and there are examples galore for this. The companies who have a successful track record put in a lot of focus on the hiring process and this is where Google marks a different path too. They are known for the curveballs thrown at candidates during interviews which check the adaptability factor more than anything else. The checkpoints that the company has established in terms of the interview process and the review mechanisms ensure that the weeding out of the wrong person happens at the fastest possible time. This does not mean that they do not hire the wrong people but that the quantum of such wrong hires is not substantial enough to disrupt the company.
The second aspect of communication is even more important. I am a firm believer of the concept that there is no such thing as over communicating in a corporate environment. The practices that Google employs with regards to getting the leadership team in front of the people and answering questions for them is a practice that can be emulated (it does get emulated in a lot of firms) across a variety of corporate environments. There is no replacement to such dialog when it comes to boosting morale of the employees. Eric and Jonathan highlight the case of Google shutting down operations in China as an example of how a high-impact decision can be communicated well and to high acceptance to the workforce of the company. There are countless other anecdotes and case studies on innovation, rewards and general management scattered through this book.
This said, all the content of this book will need to be taken with a proverbial pinch of salt. Why ? Because it is Google telling us. Not that I hide any negative connotations behind that statement. It is just that a company who is a world leader can afford to do a lot of things that most others cannot afford. Let’s look at an example : If you have a firm that is struggling to meet its financial and revenue targets and is pretty much hobbling along, the first thing that gets flung out of the window is work culture. In a scenario where everyone rolls up their sleeves and enters the trenches for a bloody battle is no place for a highly work culture oriented place. While the example is slightly exaggerated, some of the aspects that the authors talk about here cannot be applied per se to other firms. What is needed is a careful introspection of the points they raise and how they can be tuned to best use in your corporate scenario. If you apply this as is, it will stick out like a sore thumb !
A fantastic book ! Thoroughly loved it !
The book is an overview of the business, people management and innovation practices that Google preaches and practices. While we might not really understand how Google 'works’from these pages, we do get to understand how Googlers work and what keeps them ticking in a generic way. Eric and Jonathan touch some of the basic management aspects with reference to running any large corporation in a seamless way which include the company’s way of handling recruitment, performance management, rewards and recognitions and building a vibrant work culture. The key differentiator between Google and any other company in the technology space is the nature of its workforce. In Eric and Jonathan’s lingo, these are called the ‘Smart Creatives’- highly adaptable, intelligent and a dynamic set of people who form the core of the company. Being on a totally different plane of performance, it also tends to be equally important to manage these star performers in the right fashion. Any manager you know will tell you that managing a star performer is a very dicey affair and one you have to put a lot of planning into. So you can imagine what it would be to have a company full of such performers. In the process of hiring and working with such a creative set of people, Google has also given the World a fair share of technology leaders the likes of Kevin Systrom, Marissa Meyer, Sheryl Sandberg , Andy Rubin and Nikesh Arora to name a few. When you have such visionary individuals working for you, them wanting to move on to try something different is exceptionally high.
My personal favorites from this book are two aspects of running operations in a a technology company : recruitment and communication. Most organizations do not have a huge chunk of problems, most problems that they have are the ones they hire. A wrong person in the wrong role will be the death of business as we know it and there are examples galore for this. The companies who have a successful track record put in a lot of focus on the hiring process and this is where Google marks a different path too. They are known for the curveballs thrown at candidates during interviews which check the adaptability factor more than anything else. The checkpoints that the company has established in terms of the interview process and the review mechanisms ensure that the weeding out of the wrong person happens at the fastest possible time. This does not mean that they do not hire the wrong people but that the quantum of such wrong hires is not substantial enough to disrupt the company.
The second aspect of communication is even more important. I am a firm believer of the concept that there is no such thing as over communicating in a corporate environment. The practices that Google employs with regards to getting the leadership team in front of the people and answering questions for them is a practice that can be emulated (it does get emulated in a lot of firms) across a variety of corporate environments. There is no replacement to such dialog when it comes to boosting morale of the employees. Eric and Jonathan highlight the case of Google shutting down operations in China as an example of how a high-impact decision can be communicated well and to high acceptance to the workforce of the company. There are countless other anecdotes and case studies on innovation, rewards and general management scattered through this book.
This said, all the content of this book will need to be taken with a proverbial pinch of salt. Why ? Because it is Google telling us. Not that I hide any negative connotations behind that statement. It is just that a company who is a world leader can afford to do a lot of things that most others cannot afford. Let’s look at an example : If you have a firm that is struggling to meet its financial and revenue targets and is pretty much hobbling along, the first thing that gets flung out of the window is work culture. In a scenario where everyone rolls up their sleeves and enters the trenches for a bloody battle is no place for a highly work culture oriented place. While the example is slightly exaggerated, some of the aspects that the authors talk about here cannot be applied per se to other firms. What is needed is a careful introspection of the points they raise and how they can be tuned to best use in your corporate scenario. If you apply this as is, it will stick out like a sore thumb !
A fantastic book ! Thoroughly loved it !