How to Coach Yourself and Others Techniques For Coaching | Page 143
management tools, some of which are eventually rolled out as
products. For example, one of the reasons for Gmail's success is
that it was beta tested within the company for many months. The
use of e-mail is critical within the organization, so Gmail had to
be tuned to satisfy the needs of some of our most demanding
customers – our knowledge workers.
6.
Encourage creativity. Google engineers can spend up to 20
percent of their time on a project of their choice. There is, of
course, an approval process and some oversight, but basically we
want to allow creative people to be creative. One of our not-sosecret weapons is our ideas mailing list: a companywide
suggestion box where people can post ideas ranging from
parking procedures to the next killer app. The software allows
for everyone to comment on and rate ideas, permitting the best
ideas to percolate to the top.
7.
Strive to reach consensus. Modern corporate mythology has the
unique decision maker as hero. We adhere to the view that the
"many are smarter than the few," and solicit a broad base of
views before reaching any decision. At Google, the role of the
manager is that of an aggregator of viewpoints, not the dictator
of decisions. Building a consensus sometimes takes longer, but
always produces a more committed team and better decisions.
8.
Don't be evil. Much has been written about Google's slogan, but
we really try to live by it, particularly in the ranks of
management. As in every organization, people are passionate
about their views. But nobody throws chairs at Google, unlike
management practices used at some other well-known
technology companies. We foster to create an atmosphere of
tolerance and respect, not a company full of yes men.
9.
Data drive decisions. At Google, almost every decision is based
on quantitative analysis. We've built systems to manage
information, not only on the Internet at large, but also internally.
We have dozens of analysts who plow through the data, analyze
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