How Google Works: Culture, Values, and Leadership

How Google Works from Eric Schmidt

Check out the SlideShare from Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg about how Google works, especially the piece on planning your culture early and actually structuring the way your company works around those values in very specific, observable ways. Most companies have a few words on a poster but rarely explicitly identify how they’ll operate to bring those values to life, and for me, and my work with clients, this has made a huge difference. We call those tangible expressions of values across key relationship categories operating principles. I encourage leaders and teams to design how they’ll want those values to show up within the team itself, with customers, partners, and the community more broadly. They can include behaviours they will “do” as well as practices they’ll explicitly say “no” to.   Eric and Jonathan’s examples of how Google structures the work and expectations around contribution from every employee are some examples of how values get turned into tangible people practices.

The other thing that struck me about this deck is the explicit assumption about how life works now, with rapidly changes and upending of market leaders happening all the time. When that becomes the foundation upon which you will build your organization, it should absolutely determine how you work with other people both inside and outside of the organization.

Core to any of this is self awareness, and one’s ability to be aware of both thoughts and feelings and to also be present to assumptions, patterns of thinking, and reactions to various triggers so one can contribute in the best way possible.

One of the things I love about The Lean Start-Up and Agile development is the explicit process around unpacking assumptions about how the world works, what customers value, and how the product or service will solve a key issue for a customer.  Making that an explicit, transparent process that is focused on learning is such a gift for the team because it allows wisdom to be captured without the ego getting in the way. When someone births an idea, that can be easily attached to their sense of self worth, so consciously labelling something as an experiment and then celebrating the learning – even if it totally invalidates assumptions – allows the focus to be on the team’s growing wisdom versus anyone feeling that they are now less of an esteemed member of the team.  Because our ancestors’ survival was helped by being attached to a bigger group, biologically we have incredible needs for attachment and social acceptance, and anything that lowers that sense within a person triggers the pain region of the brain (the same region that’s triggered when you physically hurt yourself).  That’s why the latest behavioural science and neuroscience research show that a focus on the team, versus any one individual, bears more fruit more often than a purely individualized focus.

Culturally, I think this means that once someone has “the tickets to play” meaning they’ve earned the right to join your organization because they embody your team values and meet required attributes, then how you work becomes absolutely critical. When everyone is viewed as a leader capable of contributing, then people are absolutely held as equals and your leadership development efforts can be focused on helping each person cultivate greater relationship skills, self awareness, authenticity, systems thinking, and an ability to get things done (everything from holding a vision to getting tasks done) and managing how fear shows up in their life and how it may impact their effectiveness.

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Adaptive Talent is a talent consultancy designed to help organizations achieve amazing results and ongoing adaptability. Founded in 2008 and based in Vancouver, Canada we offer retained search, assessments, total rewards consulting, training, leadership coaching and development programs, and culture & organizational development consulting.