Four Lessons On Work Culture
That I Learned At Google
The cofounder of
Google Analytics explains how he's borrowing what he liked best at Google to
build his new startup's culture.
I spent nearly 10 years at Google
doing all kinds of stuff. I watched the
company grow, change, get better, get worse, make mistakes, find solutions, and
evolve—all from the inside. Some things I saw were brilliant, others less so. But
now that I'm building my own startup, there are a few key aspects of Google's
work culture that I've taken with me. Here are four of them.
1. SEMINARS DON'T HAVE TO SUCK
. . .
Google hosts awesome "tech
talks" so frequently that it would be impossible to go to all of them and
still do your job. At the time I worked there, my favorites were the crazy
science-fiction ideas that someone was planning on turning into realities—like space elevators (Larry Page even sat in on that
talk) and self-driving cars. In fact, I went
into that one thinking this guy had watched the Jetsons too many times, and
after 20 minutes was completely convinced it was possible, and that it would
happen very, very soon—and, of course, it's happening right now.
My new company is a platform for investing in real-estate backed
loans. And while many of us have multidisciplinary backgrounds, few of us have
experience in all four major pillars of our business: real estate, finance,
technology, and law. So for our version of "tech talks," I decided to
start with our best assets, the people inside the company, as speakers. So far,
it's worked surprisingly well. We’ve now given talks on a range of topics from
"tips-and-tricks on Chrome, Gmail, Docs and Drive" to
"understanding underwriting of real estate loans."
One of our most popular talks was one
on legal and compliance, if you can believe that. Eventually I look
forward to inviting people outside the company to come and give talks, but for
now, we’ve been doing them ourselves, and it’s going great.
Google used to hold what was called "TGIF" on late Friday
afternoons in Mountain View. These were all-hands meetings where Larry, Sergey,
and a handful of execs would take the stage, discuss what had happened that
week, and answer questions.
I always felt that later in the week
was a good time to reflect, but not a good time to motivate people for the week
ahead. The openness and transparency of the whole concept, though, is gold. So
we’ve adapted it to "TGIM." That’s right—we do a companywide meeting
every Monday, at 10:30 a.m.
We talk about "what’s hot," what happened last week, and
important events coming up. We also introduce new employees, show off new
product features, review our metrics, and discuss our pipeline of investments.
It’s a great way for people to keep up on all the stuff happening at our startup
while we're moving at breakneck speed. As long as we keep it interesting, it
works really well.
We recently started doing
company-wide OKRs, the well-known
"objectives and key results" that are basically a strategy for goal
setting. To be honest, I kind of hated OKRs at Google. But as we’ve grown the
new startup, I started hearing that people weren’t sure how various initiatives
fit into the bigger-picture goals. Our business can be complicated, so that
didn’t surprise me too much.
When we started setting OKRs, it added a level of clarity and
focus to our teams that we never had before. It forced all of us to think
through annual and quarterly goal setting for the company, each sub-team, and
each person on each team.
Since then, we've all been able to focus on the key things they need to accomplish, which has dramatically reduced overlapping responsibilities. And perhaps most important, once people understood how their efforts fit into the whole picture, it gave their work more meaning. And that’s a powerful thing—OKRs have proven to be extremely motivating.
Since then, we've all been able to focus on the key things they need to accomplish, which has dramatically reduced overlapping responsibilities. And perhaps most important, once people understood how their efforts fit into the whole picture, it gave their work more meaning. And that’s a powerful thing—OKRs have proven to be extremely motivating.
When we launched Google Drive during my time at Google, we had
crazy growth goals, but we had no reasonable idea for how we’d hit them with
the anemic marketing budget we’d been allocated. Then it occurred to us to
integrate Drive with Gmail in a way that provided a lot more user value than if
they had stayed distinct from one another. We did that and wound up reaching
our goals.
To keep growing Gmail, we relied on Android. And to grow Google
Analytics, we tapped into the ecosystem of third-party consultants.
To be honest, I kind of hated
OKRs at Google. But as we've grown the new startup, I started hearing that
people weren’t sure how various initiatives fit into the bigger-picture goals.
At PeerStreet we’ve hypothesized that there's pent-up demand from
both individuals and institutions for the loan investments we offer, but it’s
unlocking the supply side that's hard. The trick is to unlock it in a way that
scales while maintaining quality. So we use what I call the "fishing
boat" strategy: Instead of being a lender, which is time-consuming and
hard to scale, we partner with existing lenders (the fishing boats).
Inspired by my experience at Google, this model has proven smart
so far for a handful of reasons. Everyone knows real estate is a local game.
Local lenders have a much better understanding of their local market than a
centralized system ever will. They also have relationships with the best repeat
borrowers, who know how to quickly and efficiently rehabilitate a property. In
this industry, that's a signal of experience and a good proxy for quality. We
can then focus our own resources on creating value for investors by surfacing
higher-quality investments and making it easier to diversify. In other words,
we let the fishermen fish, then partner with the boats.
As the company grows, I’m sure we’ll encounter some of the same
opportunities and problems I ran into at Google. And who knows? Maybe one day
we’ll end up having issues with our self-driving employee buses being too big
for the streets of Manhattan Beach, California. But until then, I’m focused on
borrowing the best parts of Google’s culture—and it seems to be working.
BRETT CROSBY
http://www.fastcompany.com/3060238/lessons-learned/four-lessons-on-work-culture-that-i-learned-at-google?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-newsletter&position=3&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=05262016
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