Coming soon · Book Profile
How Google Works
Two of Google's most senior executives explain how to attract, manage, and unleash 'smart creatives' to build products and companies that thrive amid the disruptive change of the Internet Century.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
Drawing on more than a decade of relearning everything they thought they knew about management, Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg reveal how Google built a company culture, strategy, hiring engine, and innovation environment fit for a world where information is free, connectivity is ubiquitous, and computing power is effectively infinite. The book argues that the key to success in the twenty-first century is to attract a new kind of employee—the 'smart creative' who combines deep technical expertise, business savvy, and creative energy—and then build an environment where they can do amazing things at scale. Through candid stories about Google's biggest bets and failures, the authors offer contrarian, practical principles on culture, strategy, talent, decision-making, communications, and innovation, showing leaders in any industry how to bet on technical insight over market research, default to open, think big, ship and iterate, and imagine the unimaginable.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- An ambitious business leader or entrepreneur who wants to build a company or venture that creates great products and thrives amid disruptive, technology-driven change.
- The problem
- Traditional management practices, processes, and hierarchies are too slow and risk-averse for a world of free information, ubiquitous connectivity, and infinite computing power. They feel that the innovative, empowering methods they admire are 'practically impossible to implement' in their own big, slow, or entrenched organization.
- The plan
- Define and believe an authentic culture that attracts smart creatives.
- Build strategy on technical insights, growth, platforms, and openness.
- Make hiring the top priority using peer-based, committee-driven, data-rich processes.
- Make decisions with data, dissent, and true consensus, knowing when to decide.
- Default to open in communications and be a damn good router of information.
- The payoff
- A self-perpetuating virtuous cycle where great people attract more great people and continually deliver innovative, radically useful products. · A nimble, uncomfortable, relevant organization that outruns its own processes and disrupts its industry. · Empowered, inspired employees who take initiative and solve big problems even when it isn't their job.
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Additional reading
- Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock Potential in Yourself and Your Organization · Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey
This is the authors' previous book, which provides a deep dive into the ITC framework that is presented as a key tool in Chapter 6 and used by the fledgling DDOs in Chapter 7.
- In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life · Robert Kegan
This book lays out the foundational theory of adult development and mental complexity that underpins the entire DDO concept, explaining the 'adaptive gap' that DDOs are designed to address.
- Mindset: The New Psychology of Success · Carol Dweck
The book explicitly references Dweck's work, contrasting the 'fixed mindset' (prevalent in ordinary organizations) with the 'growth mindset' that is fundamental to a DDO's culture.
- Organizational Culture and Leadership · Edgar H. Schein
Mentioned in the book, Schein's work provides a foundational understanding of organizational culture, which is the primary medium through which DDOs operate.
- The Functions of the Executive · Chester Barnard (1938)
Chapter 10 identifies this book as providing the seminal concept of 'willingness to contribute to the cooperative system,' which forms the theoretical foundation for the modern construct of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB).
- The Psychology of Careers · Donald E. Super (1957)
Chapter 3 cites this as a foundational work that established the concept of career stages, a model that has profoundly influenced career development theory and research for decades.
- Decision-making in the employment interview · E. C. Webster (1964)
Chapter 6 highlights this as the key report from the influential McGill University studies, which revealed the cognitive biases inherent in unstructured interviews and shifted the focus of research toward understanding the interviewer's decision process.
- Principles for the Validation and Use of Personnel Selection Procedures · Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP)
Multiple chapters (e.g., 13, 15) refer to this document and the related AERA/APA/NCME 'Standards' as the authoritative professional guidelines that define best practices and core concepts, like the modern unitarian view of validity, for the entire field of personnel selection.
- Managing Human Assets · Beer, M. et al. (1984)
This is a seminal book that introduced the 'Harvard framework' of HRM, emphasizing a multi-stakeholder approach that considers the interests of employees, not just shareholders. It provides a foundational 'soft' HRM perspective.
- Strategic Human Resource Management · Fombrun, C. J., Tichy, N. M. and Devanna, M. A. (1984)
This book introduced the 'Michigan framework,' which advocated for a 'hard' HRM approach focused on tightly matching HR strategy to the business strategy (vertical fit). It is a foundational text for the strategic alignment concept.