How Google Works?

Sunday, February 24, 2019

Ask people to name one successful technology company. Most will say Google or at least think about saying it. Yep, from offering Internet search services, it quickly rose to be a global leader. And it’s still growing. So, do you know how Google works?

Let’s get some insights through the book – How Google Works – written by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg. Eric Schmidt is the former CEO of Google and Jonathan Rosenberg, the Head of Products. Along with Google founders, they created a culture which every engineer wants to be a part of.

Check out This Postcard from Google Headquarters!

The book lays out the Google path to success and its core values. It shows how the Google organizational structure functions, and you can follow it too – to make your start-up successful.

Listen to the summary at Blinkist or listen to the book at Audible.

What makes Google unique?

The answer on how Google works on retaining customer and employee satisfaction levels high can be found in its unique company culture.
The answer on how Google works on retaining customer and employee satisfaction levels high can be found in its unique company culture.

The answer is “Smart Creatives”.

Anyone with a small team can create a product easily, thanks to the Internet. But the information available on the Internet also gives people a horde of choices. If someone doesn’t like something, he/she will make the switch. They will simply choose another product. Thus, good products are the need of the time.

Winning customers is quite easy these days, but retaining them needs you to have the best possible product. And that’s how Google works out its business strategy. They developed one of the biggest search engines, a game-changing product, thanks to their smart creatives.

Read more: 7 Things That Every Company Can Learn From Google

Those are the people who are technical experts as well as creative. And their creativity is given ample freedom. The hiring committee chooses them on the basis of their interests, passion, experience and not only the certificates they show.

Moreover, Google fuels their ambition and gives wings to their creativity. 

Interactive company culture

The atmosphere inside Google offices encourages creative work.
The atmosphere inside Google offices encourages creative work.

So, how does Google work towards retaining its employees and also makes profits? They provide what the smart creatives need to continue working – the best company culture one can experience. At Google, the employees can easily interact with colleagues and collaborate. Also, they are free to speak their mind and make decisions.

Among the Google core values is to “make the world a better place”. Yes, literally. And there are many examples of unorthodox ways they use to get a solution to a problem. Once Larry Page put a printout of a search page with the note “THESE ADS SUCK”.

A group of people worked in their free time over the weekend and found the solution. They weren’t even the team responsible for those ads. That’s the level of devotion of the employees in Google.

Discuss first, Decide later

Google is known for its company culture that focuses on collaboration and interaction between colleagues.
Google is known for its company culture that focuses on collaboration and interaction between colleagues.

How did the employees have that devotion towards work? How do they bring out innovative solutions in the market? The answer lies in its strategic foundation.

Instead of a plan, Jonathan Rosenberg wrote some foundation rules that govern how Google works out its day-to-day strategy. One of the rules is to make either useful developments or develop something which lowers the costs. Another two rules are to work on developing platforms (a group of helpful products) and share the information with the world.

Read more: 10 Essentials of a Remote Office

Every possible information is made available among the employees and to the world (when they can).

This availability of information keeps the employees updated and thus, they can take part in the decision-making process. Instead of forcing the decision of the board on the creatives, every opinion is considered. The interactive and open Google business environment helps in such a process.

Instead of going through a few options, everyone speaks out their opinion. The important ones are kept and discussed until a decision is reached. But yes, there are deadlines.

Enforce collaboration to encourage innovation

Google values collaboration as they know that it's one of the most effective innovation stimulants.
Google values collaboration as they know that it's one of the most effective innovation stimulants.

Apart from being open about the company’s reports, Google’s intranet has information about every project and the participating employees. The smart creatives thus can collaborate, even across departments, and help each other.

The company promotes this openness in meetings too. Everyone can submit a question to founders for their weekly meetings, which in turn helps in a conversation between the like minds. Innovation happens somewhere among those conversations and collaborations. You can’t forcefully create innovations.

Read more: The Silicon Valley Tech Community

But Google also takes steps to stimulate innovation. That’s how Google works. They encourage their employees to be open to risks and failure, and it values even risky projects. 10% of the budget goes to such risky innovations. And Google also allows its smart creatives to get creative. Gmail is the product of one such creativity.

Now that was all about how Google started, how it works and how it became one of the most successful companies. If you too want your startup to see the success Google experienced, follow the path of Google:

  • Give up some of your power.
  • Adjust your leadership style to promote innovation.
  • Hire smart people who are interested in the ‘work’.
  • And the most important, undertake ways to retain them for as long as you can.

In today’s consumer-centric and competitive world, only those survive who take care of the others. So, take care of your customers, take care of your employees.

I wish you enjoy the taste of success.

Abhijeet Kumar a freelance content writer for aSabbatical.com
We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.