Google places a high premium on being nice, helping your
colleagues, doing the right thing, not being “evil,” etc. Indeed, I am told
that your evaluation and promotions are very contingent on how your peers
evaluate you; your manager is not the key determinant for your perceived
success in the organization.
So far, everyone really does seem…nice. And helpful.
And I wondered, what makes an organization generally “nice”
rather than snarky and competitive?
It could be that these are the “shared values” of the
organization, and people who join an organization espouse these principles
because they know these are the behaviors that will enable them to succeed.
Or, it could be that Google “hires” for “Googliness” (a real
term that is used here - -“being Googley” - ) - -and so the culture is created
by populating the organization with like-minded people.
Or, as Amnon suggested, Google has created a culture where
employees feel that their needs are met, that they can work hard and earn well,
that the company values them with lots of perks, that there has never been a
threat of layoffs, that they are truly treated as Googles “most valuable assets”…and
so it becomes easy to be “nice”… -
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ReplyDeleteThe most interesting point is how peer feedback was more important for evaluations and promotions than their manager's input. That reminded me of when we had the PBC 360 degree feedback many years ago. I wonder how that process works at Google (do the employees get to pick the people?). Shortly after you left, IBM announced that we are transforming new PBC system (no details as of yet) but there's a caveat: IBM managers will continue to be accountable for assessing their teams.
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