How Google's Novel Management System Aids Growth 156
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Gary Hamel, visiting professor at London Business School, argues in a Wall Street Journal commentary that Google's 'novel management system seems to have been designed to guard against the risk factors that so often erode an organization's evolutionary potential.' Among Google's advantages: The 20% rule, an 'expansive sense of purpose' and the credo, 'keep the bozos out and reward people who make a difference.' Hamel also traces the company's evolution from Google 1.0, 'a search engine that crawled the Web but generated little revenue,' to Google 5.0, 'an innovation factory that produces a torrent of new Web-based services, including Gmail, Google Desktop, and Google Base. More than likely, 6.0 is around the corner.'"
Novell? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Novell? (Score:1)
That's the first thing I thought of too when I saw the title.
Re:Novell? (Score:2, Funny)
--
onedotzero
thedigitalfeed.co.uk [thedigitalfeed.co.uk]
Re:Novell? (Score:2)
Re:Novell? (Score:2)
Re:Novell? (Score:1)
Re:Novell? (Score:2)
Wrong versioning scheme (Score:5, Funny)
Fixed.
Re:Wrong versioning scheme (Score:2)
The Friendly Giant... (Score:3, Insightful)
All that said, how long can Google really maintain it's unorthadox business methods while allowing VERY orthadox investors to buy stocks in the company. I'd say it's only a matter of time, and the price for become a truly large corporation. I can only hope that I am wrong.
Re:The Friendly Giant... (Score:3, Insightful)
More products and more inovation means more dollars. more dollars means hap-hap-happy investors. now if only Google would hire me.
Re:The Friendly Giant... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Friendly Giant... (Score:2)
Re:The Friendly Giant... (Score:5, Interesting)
If these companies continue to communicate to their share holders the sustained benefits of long term gain, we won't see a signifigant change in their unorthadox business methods.
Re:Time will tell (Score:2)
Google is still young - let another 10 years pass, and see what happens. People get stale - it's just part of the human condition. The only way I see to gaurd against this is to ensure that there is a controlled degree of turnover in staff (especially managmement) so that nobody gets too comfortable.
Re:Time will tell (Score:2)
I've always found HTML, web scripting, da
Re:Time will tell (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Do no Evil? (Score:1)
Re:Do no Evil? (Score:2)
Reminds me (Score:5, Interesting)
Really great book if you're interested in the ideas behind firms like Google.
Remember when Yahoo was the darling? (Score:2, Insightful)
As a previous poster said, as it gets bigger, things will not go as well. Just as everyone turned on MicroSoft, I'm sure one say everyone will turn on Google as well. We're a fickle industry.
Ah yes (Score:1)
Oh absolutely, everyone has completely turned their back on Microsoft [dallasnews.com]
[/sarcasm>]Re:Ah yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ah yes (Score:2)
Re:Ah yes (Score:2)
Whooops (Score:1, Funny)
The article title came out "Google's management (has) AIDS"
Oops.
An innovation factory.... (Score:2)
We're using it for the indi [getindi.com] downloads and it's been working great - especially when paired with the Ruby API [blogs.com].
God I hope it lasts... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:God I hope it lasts... (Score:4, Insightful)
See, that's my biggest issue. (Score:2)
Re:See, that's my biggest issue. (Score:2)
Re:See, that's my biggest issue. (Score:2)
You bring up some good points, but I am sure that companies could trim a lot of fat (pun intended) by using their engineers and programmers to develope a much more efficient way of running things and giving alot of management the pink slip and a 2 year tech school broc
Re:God I hope it lasts... (Score:5, Interesting)
Google just hired him to do business development. Unlike the stories I hear about how difficult it is to get hired there, he did very little work to get the position except submit a resume - in fact, it was more like they were actively looking for someone like him.
Anyways, perhaps that's some sort of indicator of the MBA types Google is recruiting.
Re:God I hope it lasts... (Score:2)
I have a great amount of reverence for people with the kind of experience you mention in the tech world with MBA's, as that degree makes an excellent... how to say it, icing on top of the rather large and impressive foundation of 10 years at NASA.
Re:God I hope it lasts... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:God I hope it lasts... (Score:1)
Re:God I hope it lasts... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:God I hope it lasts... (Score:1)
Problem is... (Score:3)
Capitalism exists only to make a society more efficient than other economic systems and help civilization pr
Re:Problem is... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's what the manipulation of money (investment) is, that's its DEFINITION. So some folks don't invest money in the places you would prefer, boo hoo. Some other folks invest money in illegal/immoral ways (monsanto, feedlots, illegal immigr
Re:Problem is... (Score:2)
You are so wrong. (Score:2)
I wouldn't expect a lover of Marx to understand that though.
And in 2016, Google becomes self aware..... (Score:4, Funny)
and:
"Google seems to have grasped the new century's most important business lesson: The capacity to evolve is the most important advantage of all."
My bet is on Google to solce the problems of a working A.I., maybe by accident, maybe by design.
Re:And in 2016, Google becomes self aware..... (Score:1)
PimTerry
Re:And in 2016, Google becomes self aware..... (Score:2)
Re:And in 2016, Google becomes self aware..... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:And in 2016, Google becomes self aware..... (Score:2)
I would take issue with one point from the article (Score:5, Insightful)
Elitism may be out of fashion, but Google is famously elitist when it comes to hiring. It understands that companies begin to slide into mediocrity when they start to hire mediocre people. A-level people want to work with A-level people.
The only problem is that a company cannot thrive longterm with only A-level people. As a software company grows and matures so the average age of the company code base increases, and there's a gradually increasing requirement for maintenance of the older products. A-level people rarely consider their primary task in life is settling in as a maintenance coder on products that are no longer considered to have a substantial "wow" factor.
Having said that, code maintenance can be some of the most demanding work around, as programmers are asked to come up to speed on outdated code they didn't write and make it do things it was never designed to do. But, speaking generally, this isn't considered something that will make you stand out in your company and it's not where A-level people want to be.
Equally well, having everyone take a turn at maintenance doesn't work either. I would imagine that there's few programming tasks worse than taking over code that's been maintained by half a dozen people who only wanted to move on to other things. You probably aren't going to get any of the awards mentioned in the article by burying yourself in old code, regardless how valuable that might be.
Excellent Point (Score:2)
Re:I would take issue with one point from the arti (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of googles flat structure makes it possible to have maintenance be a sexy task within the organization by allowing rewards to go where they should go too. I would say that 'most companies' create the hierarchy because they don't have the guts to manage the way that google does.
I've worked at far too many companies where the disconnect between espoused values and actual values create the kind of situation you describe (ie maintenance coding is a loser job, best avoided or gotten promoted out of).
Re:I would take issue with one point from the arti (Score:2)
Come on, seriously now: do you honestly thing that the programmers who work on Google Earth and/or Search Quality are competing for the same jobs as someone who maintains the software behind the parallelized OS? As a programmer and sometimes manager in this software industry (I guess that's what you'd call it, these days my code is mostly report-generation and accounting software, but that's another story), I can tell you often server programmers couldn't care less what application p
perpetually "beta" (Score:2)
Re:I would take issue with one point from the arti (Score:3, Interesting)
He tried to hire only the best of the best for a while and after gave up.
You cannot reward everybody in the company otherwise reward loose its meaning. So you must choose. If you have a team with a guy who is 2 times beter than an average employee in another company, he is still mediocre compared to his colleague who is 2.1 times beter.
In addition, the less performant employees are the 'disposable' percentile. At the next company difficulty they know they are terminated,
Ironic that they have to buy other companies (Score:2, Insightful)
WSJ is submitting articles now? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:WSJ is submitting articles now? (Score:2)
Re:WSJ is submitting articles now? (Score:2)
You must be new here...
Re:WSJ is submitting articles now? (Score:2)
Novel? (Score:3, Interesting)
i disagree with the evolutionary steps (Score:5, Interesting)
It should be:
Google 1.0: A nobody search engine
Google 2.0: Outsourcing search engine
Google 3.0: Contextual ads in searches
Google 4.0: Adsense network
Google 4.1: Information hoarding of users
My version 4.1 highlights Google's recent overt interest in aggregating data on its users through services like the personalized homepage, Gmail, Gcal, Gchat, and the Google Desktop. Why is it not 5.0? Because these enhance the previously established revenue streams without changing the way they make money. It is not an evolution in Google's financial model, just new ways to better target their contextual ads (3.0 and 4.0).
In order for a 5.0 to happen, Google has to redefine its primary revenue stream or add a new one that pulls in revenue from a seperate audience. My point is made most clear by highlighting the benefiting party of each evolutionary step:
Google 1.0: A nobody search engine - You and me
Google 2.0: Outsourcing search engine - Yahoo/AOL/portals
Google 3.0: Contextual ads in searches - Web advertisers
Google 4.0: Adsense network - Web masters
Google 4.1: Information hoarding of users
Likely candidates for a 5.0 would be:
Television or radio advertisement domination
Online music store, or other type of goods for cash type of business
Online payment system (clone paypal)
A novel online service as a subscription service (seems least likely with Google's history)
Those would be Google 5.0.
Re:i disagree with the evolutionary steps (Score:2)
Google 5.0, 'an innovation factory that produces a torrent of new Web-based services, including Gmail, Google Desktop, and Google Base'
Innovation factories are great - innovation is great. I'm really hard pressed to figure out how google is making more money by deploying these products. Sure Gmail has adsense, but how many of those ads are really relevent? My experience has been mostly "miss". More over, do the clicks really pay for the cost of deploying and maintaining the accounts, who
Re:i disagree with the evolutionary steps (Score:2)
Google 6.0: Profit!
It's late. Please forgive me.
Re:i disagree with the evolutionary steps (Score:2)
Usenet Death Penalty for Google Groups (Score:3, Interesting)
Call for UDP against Google Groups [google.com]
Re:Usenet Death Penalty for Google Groups (Score:2)
Bozos, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, everybody does that, don't they? Even the Bush administration does that. The key is in your perception of who the bozos are, and who makes a difference...
Re:Bozos, etc. (Score:1)
Except the bozo in charge!
torrent of new Web-based services (Score:2, Funny)
Anyone got a link to this torrent?
Novel Management... (Score:2, Funny)
(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
Keep the Bozos out (Score:2, Interesting)
The premisse is that you can reduce all the richness of human beings to an unidimensional measure. The best teams I worked with have a diversity of talents, each one contributing for the success.
Re:Keep the Bozos out (Score:2)
Re:Keep the Bozos out (Score:4, Interesting)
Hiring above the mean makes sense for jobs where a better employee means a potentially higher return for the company - it does not make sense for positions where a better employee means higher costs and no higher return and higher turnover.
In fact, for a large number of positions, it makes sense to look for the weakest candidate that can do the job satisfactorily within reasonable margins, assuming you get a chance to hire them at a matching salary, because such candidates are more likely to have a possible career ladder (and so be more likely to stay) and/or are more likely to stay because it's harder for them to move elsewhere, and are likely to be cheaper than the alternatives.
Even if you're looking purely at developer jobs, if you keep hiring above the mean, it means eventually you'll have people with PhD's and umpteen years experience doing routine maintenance programming for trivial, non-critical systems that you could have safely handed to some intern.
Re:Keep the Bozos out (Score:2)
Also, Google employees get to work on their own ideas/etc for 20% of their employed time, which also puts a different spin on it, wrt the quality of projects developed during this time, and in fact down the the amount of
Re:Keep the Bozos out (Score:2)
Re:Keep the Bozos out (Score:2)
For other departments (some or all others) who employ "above the mean", it's more than likely gonna be within the context of the department, ie, someone hired for art/graphics skills aren't necessarily going to be vigorously compared on their programming skills with t
Re:Keep the Bozos out (Score:2)
Y'know, I'm surprised I never see this brought up at all. Almost as if everything in the Mountain and Central time zones has a big "Dragons Be There..." drawn in on the map.
Not just the Midwest either--how many/few Google folks hail from the Southeast? Deep South?
It's not like the CE's from the U of I(llinois) are slouches. Or Purdue. Or Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice,
And no, I'm not an alumn of any of the above. But it does seem pr
In Search of Excellence? (Score:2)
Now if a writer looked at 100 start-up companies and predicted which ones would succeed and which ones would fail in the next 5 years based on their management practices and he got most of them right, I
Add 'enormous hubris' to the Google motto (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's wait 5 years to see if Google is indeed so wonderful, ground-breaking, innovative blah blah blah.
The rapid growth trajectory they are on at the moment has been traced by many tech and other companies in the past, and along the way things get more complicated and organisations and their environment can change dramatically, often for the worse. G. are not unique in this or any respect, and don't live outside of history.
I'd also like to dispute statements that Google is
Enron (Score:3, Interesting)
Another company that hired only A-level talent, robustly avoided B-level talent, ran strong internal competitions to try and attract other employees onto your star project, and talked a lot about "darwinian" processes running between internal projects was: Enron
Like Google now, Enron back in the day had management consultants writing magazine articles about the wonders of their "fluid" structure, the way petty beaurocrats were kept out of people's way, and their hiring practices. It was The Way Of The Future. Enron was the best, was going to take over and Rule Supreme. Like Google, Enron was proud that it didn't just keep to one boring idea of what they did, the company could perpetually reinvented itself.
Those standard management structures exist for a reason. If google finds a way to work without them long-term, then good for them. But it's harder than it might seem.
So "Dr. Enron" Hamel Likes Google too! (Score:2, Informative)
Googles 20% +10% rule is jsut best practice from the 3M post-it case taught to every HBS MBA with the 10% twist. It works. Its not new. Google does some things exceptionally well. But I don't need a revisio
This isn't new (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:2)
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely agree with you. Those big companies are in trouble. IBM after all showed only a 25% growth in profit for Q1 2006. And, just a few minutes before I posted this, Microsoft announced a small jump of 16% growth in profit AND a 13% growth in revenue. Leaving the tech industry, Exxon Mobile had a horrible quarter with only $89 Billion in Revenue.
Yeah, those large companies, they are just falling apart....Oh, wait...
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:2)
IBM had almost gone under years ago and had to reinvent itself. Micrsoft's stock has been stagnant for years. As for the oil companies... well thats the definition of corruption :)
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:2)
As long as google doesn't employ the same mind-set in approaching its mission ...
From the article:
There are a lot of evil ways to raise the world's IQ - most of them involving a bullet.
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:2)
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:2)
Off-topic : I don't know about you, but when I looked at the title of this thread "Goodles problem will be their increasing size" my first thought was "penis enlargment spam".
Back on topic (sort of): Think of how much less disorganized the world would be without its global village idiot.
Really on topic: If information is TOO organized, its usefulness diminishes. Its by the cross-fertilization of ideas between seemingly unrelated areas that we make many of our gee-whiz advances - velcro being a simple e
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:2)
It is possible to make money yet not be a very good company.
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:2)
Sure, but that's not what we're doing, are we?
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:3, Insightful)
-Chris
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:1)
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:1)
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:1)
Not gonna happen, but it is a possibility to float with the force a purpose group.
Re:Googles problem will be their increasing size (Score:2)
That in fact used to be the case. [wikipedia.org]
Of the two books cited at the end of that section of the linked article, I've only read Bakan's book [amazon.com]. Which is entertaining and informative, but is regarded by some as being a one-sided criticism of the modern corporation. As one might have guessed, it was a form of state greed that allowed the development of the limited liability deregulated company, and in this form is no older than many 120 years or so.
Problems will increase when they don't deliver (Score:2)
This all stinks of geese and golden eggs, but Wall Street's memory of positive indicators only extends to the last quarterly result.
Re:Profit? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I Would Never Work For Google..... (Score:2)
Maybe, if you do want to work there, you need to make yourself valuable in some other way ... specialise in something they need maybe.
Re:I Would Never Work For Google..... (Score:2)
There is a silver lining though - look at it this way, if you got through so many interviews and it took them so long to decide, I bet you were really close to getting it. A lot of people don't make it through the first 2 or so I hear - probably it was something