Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

While Eric Schmidt's book "How Google Works" is better, Work Rules adds considerable depth on Google's People Operations practices. Here are my key takeaways: - Operate on the belief that people are fundamentally good - Use groups of peers or independent teams for: hiring, promotions, salary increases, awards, and firing (often excluding the direct manager) - Managers exist to: (a) make tie-breaking decisions (b) coach/train to develop employees (c) care about people's well-being (d) set vision/strategy (e) provide technical advice (f) empower by clearing roadblocks - Conduct 2x-per-year performance reviews on a 5-point scale and then calibrate (which are separate from continuous feedback); get 360 feedback on ‘do more of’ and ‘do differently’ 1x per year - Make all goals (objectives and key results) public - Design physical spaces to encourage interaction across departments - Help employees meet the people they are helping - Ensure transparency (in all matters unless unlawful) - Only hire people who are better than you, who will be successful in the context of your organization, and who will make everyone around them more successful - Referrals from existing employees are the best source of candidates - Couple assessments of cognitive/problem-solving/learning ability, conscientiousness, and emergent leadership/fit with structured interviews that are job related: (a) Tell me about a time..? (b) What would you do if…? Note: 4 interviews are sufficient - Eliminate status symbols - Pay bonuses based on the median salary of all people in a job - Have people who are the best at something train everyone else (share principles, role-play, discuss, review video of role-play) - Make pay commensurate with contribution (following a power law rather than a normal distribution) - Provide experiential rewards (as a complement to monetary awards) - Celebrate accomplishment with public recognition - Reward smart failure and make sure to conduct “what did we learn?” post-mortem sessions - Provide nudges to influence, not dictate, choice - Uphold the obligation to dissent (a McKinsey core value) - Treasure the weird - Put more wood behind fewer arrows - Building a great culture requires constant experimentation and renewal Various programs and processes: - TGIF: weekly all company meeting to share updates plus 30 minutes of Q&A - Dogfooding: Have employees test new products and provide feedback before piloting with customer - Bureaucracy Busters: annual program to identify and fix biggest frustrations - Upward Feedback Survey: 2x per year survey about manager quality - 20 Percent time: time for people to engage in side-projects (often 120% time) - Googlegeist: Annual survey focused heavily on innovation, execution, and retention - Tech Advisor: network of experienced leaders offering confidential, one-on-one office hours - Random Lunches: set people up with others they don’t yet know - Tech Talks: Employees sharing work (and non-work) expertise - Talks at Google: Outsider (ex: authors, business leaders, entertainers, etc.) sharing their wisdom