Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead

by Laszlo Bock

Google’s approach is to cleave the knot. We deliberately take power and authority over employees away from managers. Here is a sample of the decisions managers at Google cannot make unilaterally: Whom to hire Whom to fire How someone’s performance is rated How much of a salary increase, bonus, or stock grant to give someone Who is selected to win an award for great management Whom to promote When code is of sufficient quality to be incorporated into our software code base The final design of a product and when to launch it Each of these decisions is instead made either by a group of peers, a committee, or a dedicated, independent team. Many newly hired managers hate this! Even once they get their heads around the way hiring works, promotion time comes around and they are dumbfounded that they can’t unilaterally promote those whom they believe to be their best people. The problem is that you and I might define our “best people” differently. Or it might be possible that your worst person is better than my best person, in which case you should promote everyone and I should promote no one. If you’re solving for what is most fair across the entire organization, which in turn helps employees have greater trust in the company and makes rewards more meaningful, managers must give up this power and allow outcomes to be calibrated across groups.