Here is an excerpt from an article written by Adam Bryant for The New York Times (March 12, 2001) in which he focuses on a plan that Google code-named Project Oxygen in early 2009. To read the complete article, please click here.
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Laszlo Bock of Google says its study found that a boss’s technical expertise was less important than “being accessible.”
IN early 2009, statisticians inside the Googleplex here embarked on a plan code-named Project Oxygen.
Their mission was to devise something far more important to the future of Google Inc. than its next search algorithm or app.
They wanted to build better bosses.
So, as only a data-mining giant like Google can do, it began analyzing performance reviews, feedback surveys and nominations for top-manager awards. They correlated phrases, words, praise and complaints.
Later that year, the “people analytics” teams at the company produced what might be called the Eight Habits of Highly Effective Google Managers.
Here are the “Eight Good Behaviors”:
1. Be a good coach: Provide specific, constructive feedback, balancing the negative and the positive. Have regular one-on-ones, presenting solutions to the problems tailored to your employees’ specific strengths.
2. Empower your team and don’t micromanage: Balance giving freedom to your employees, while being available for advice. Make stretch assignments to help the team members tackle big problems.
3. Express interest in team members’ success and personal well-being: Get to know your employees as people, with lives outside of work. Make new members of your team feel welcome and help ease their transition.
4. Don’t be a sissy: be productive and results-oriented: Focus on what the employees want the team to achieve and how they can help achieve it. Help the team prioritize work and use seniority to remove roadblocks.
5. Be a good communicator and listen to your team: Communication is two-way because you both listen and share information. Hold all-hands meetings and be straightforward about the messages and goals of the team. Help the team members to connect the dots. Encourage open dialogue and listen to the issues and concerns of your employees.
6. Help your employees with career development.
7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team: Even in the midst of turmoil, keep the team focused on goals and strategy. Involve the team in setting and evolving the team’s vision and making progress toward it.
8. Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team: Roll up your sleeves and conduct work side by side with the tram, when needed. Understand the specific, especially the unique challenges of the work to be done.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of The New York Times, oversees coverage of education issues, military affairs, law, and works with reporters in many of the Times’ domestic bureaus. He also conducts interviews with CEOs and other leaders for Corner Office, a weekly feature in the SundayBusiness section and on nytimes.com that he started in March 2009. To contact him, please click here.