Laszlo Bock served as Google’s Senior Vice President of People Operations, growing the company from 6,000 to more than 75,000 employees. Google has been recognized more than 150 times as an exceptional employer, including the #1 “Best Company to Work for in the United States” every year since 2012. Bock’s New York Times best-selling book, WORK RULES!, has been published in more than 20 languages and has garnered numerous honors.
- Every place I worked there was a gap between the values leaders talked about and what they actually lived out and how they acted and led
- Find the best people, grow them as fast as we can, and then keep them at the company as long as we can
- We spend more time working than doing anything else in the world
- The experience of work should be meaningful
- If I don’t work at Google how can we do these things? How can these things be universal?
- But this stuff works everywhere because humans are the same everywhere
- Treat your people right and they will do great things for you
- The most important thing = Give you work meaning
- Have a mission that matters
- 1/3 of people feel meaning in their work 1/3 do it because they need $ 1/3 do it as a game (get promoted)
#1 Figure out why you are doing why you are doing the work you are doing and remind youself of it daily
#2 You don’t need to inspire everyone, find out why people are doing what they’re doing and have them tell their stories
#3 Have people come I who are the beneficiaries of the work you do
#4 Do it again and again and again
- Trust, Transparency and Voice
- Do you believe human beings are fundamentally good or evil
- The only thing that really improves and drives performance is goals
- Bureaucracy busters: ask people and let them solve it…trust people
- People who are doing the work know more about the work because they’re actually doing the work
- Giving people more autonomy and more freedom increases performance…
- If you are a leader give people more freedom than you are comfortable with
- Give people more freedom and they will be happier, stay longer and do more for you organization
- Recruiting and hiring is how you transform organizations
- In recruiting we make snap judgements and then the rest of the interview we subconsciously trying to affirm those snap judgements
2 Simple Hiring Rules:
- #1 Don’t let the people interviewing make the hiring decision and instead have them write it all down and give it to someone else
- #2 Have a rule to only hire someone who is better than you in some way
- Let your people know that you trust them and you’re on their side
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