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

by Laszlo Bock

Ultimately, three things were clear: Consensus was impossible. In the absence of clear evidence, everyone became an expert and there were constituencies arguing for every possible variation. People had strong opinions about questions like whether five or six performance categories are best. Even when making changes to the least popular process at Google, it was impossible to find a solution that made everyone happy. It seemed that even though many people disliked the current system, they disliked every other option even more! People took performance management seriously. For example, we polled Googlers about what to label our performance categories, and more than 4,200 votes were cast. The clearest trend was a desire for seriousness and clarity, not whimsy. Experimentation was vital. In the absence of external evidence, we had to develop our own, working with the leaders of each part of Google to help them test their ideas. At YouTube they tried sorting everyone into a rank order of most to least effective, regardless of level, and found that one of the two most effective people was a mid-level employee, who was then rewarded with one of the biggest stock grants at YouTube.