Google: Management Philosophy 1

Google:Management Philosophy
A study in leadership through
inspiration and reward
Zachary Standridge

Middle Georgia State University

Zachary Standridge, School of Information Technology, Middle Georgia State University

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Zachary Standridge,

School of Information Technology, Middle Georgia State University, Macon GA , 31206

Contact: zachary.standridge@mga.edu
 Google: Management Philosophy 2
Abstract

With the tech world flooded with new students graduating college every year, the pillars of

the tech world have to find ways of management which can take the offerings of these

students and employees to new heights. Founded by two prospective PhD Computer Science

researchers, the founders of Google have set a system of awards, perks, and incentives which

the google management teams have used to take new strides for the company. These

innovations which push the company forward into new markets, come from allowing the

employee to research their own projects, ideas, or policies which still making the day to day

operations of the company possible.

Keywords: Google, management, development

 Google: Management Philosophy 3

The Birth of Google and Foundations of its Leadership model

Founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brim while attending Stanford

University Graduate School in California and based in Mountain View, California today,

Google is an American Technology company which offers internet related services and

products. In August of 2015, Google reorganized all its projects and side companies under the

moniker Alphabet Inc. (Walker, 2015) Just as Apple, Disney, Amazon, and Lotus had done,

Google was started in a garage. Larry and Brim left the Ph.D. program at Stanford to develop

their search engine company. Building on their research project, “The Anatomy of a Large-

scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine.” the two used the outcome as the building blocks to

their search engine(Gray, 2014)

Google managerial style

With both of the founders of the company coming from an academic background, the

need for research and thinking outside of the box was in their leadership styles when dealing

with employees and allowing them the freedom to come up with independent and innovative

ideas to implement in the company. (Google, 2019) Google LLC. had a policy of only

approaching the top of the class with a proven track record of independent thought. They

pushed the new employees to be even more independent and to show off their creativity. The

company instituted a 70-20-10 time dispersal to the Google work day, which is 70 % of the

work day should be devoted to Google business, 20% to the off-budget projects which are

still related to the core business, and 10% to the employee’s own ideas based on their

interests and educational background. (Groth, 2012) (Google, 2019)Within the company

reward structure, there are many awards for bringing to life innovations. The system is set up

for the employee to see the system of rewards and perks as a way to allow the employees to

be a part of the future of the company. (Groth, 2012) The managerial reward plans to the
 Google: Management Philosophy 4
employees are set up so that the employee adds to the company instead of leaving and

creating a competing venture. (Google, 2019) (Groth, 2012) This technique has proven

itself adventitious to the company. In 2017, 50% of Google’s new products and services were

generated by the employees during the 10% free time allowed in the time dispersal plan.

(MacNeil & MacNeil, 2018)Choosing whether or not a new product or service is put into

production is not up to the founders. The first name on the creative team does not have sway

to make the product go forward as well. New creations much compete in a constant fight to

be the strongest in the environment to be pushed to the public. This “Darwinism (Survival of

the fittest)” environment allowed Paul Buchheit to created Gmail and Buchheit with Amit

Patel to add “Don t be evil” to the original Google slogan. (Groth, 2012) Though this slogan

has been removed from the manifesto and changed to “Do the right thing”, to not be evil has

been retained at the end of the company employee contact of behavior. (Sinha, 2016) This

slogan stood as a reminder to the employees that the company was not there to exploit their

customer's ignorance and short term gains are not worth doing what is necessary for

contributing a meaningful addition to society. (Google, 2019)

Conclusion.

Google is a business which is propelled to higher levels because the company has

successfully aligned itself with the modern day human need to instantly communicate around

the world. With an aggressive, “You can make this company better” philosophy given to the

employees the challenge of making the next step in evolution is not placed upon the head of

just the engineers but every single employee has the right and opportunity to take

Google/Alphabet into regions which have not been accessible in the past. This feeling of

belonging which most people desire, the feeling of being connected to the management, the

other employees, and the customers to create a competitive advantage for the company.
 Google: Management Philosophy 5
References

Walker, K. (n.d.). UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

ALPHABET INC. Retrieved January 29, 2019, from
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d82837d8k12b.htm

Gray, J. (2014). Are Sergey Brin And Mark Zuckerberg God-Builders? New Perspectives
Quarterly, 31(2), 82-84. doi:10.1111/npqu.11459

Groth, A. (2012, November 27). Everyone Should Use Google's Original '70-20-10 Model'
To Map Out Their Career. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/kyle-
westaway-how-to-manage-your-career-2012-11

MacNeil, J. S., & MacNeil, J. S. (2018, March 12). Google Employees Dedicate 20 Percent
of Their Time to Side Projects. Here's How It Works. Retrieved from
https://www.inc.com/adam-robinson/google-employees-dedicate-20-percent-of-their-
time-to-side-projects-heres-how-it-works.html

Sinha, S. (2016). Book Review: Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg, How Google Works.
Vision: The Journal of Business Perspective, 20(1), 82-83.

Google. (n.d.). Let’s make work better. Retrieved February 2, 2019, from
https://rework.withgoogle.com/

Google. (n.d.). Let’s make work better. Retrieved February 3 2019, from
https://rework.withgoogle.com/subjects/learning-development/