How Google Works is a quick and easy read (I am a slow reader and I plowed through this book over the weekend), but packed with some interesting perspective and specific tips.
The book highlights the fact that Google operates in the manner that Google manages human capital for talent. It is almost straight out of the pages of The War for Talent published back in 2001. Hire the best talent, take your time to get the best talent, help the best talent develop, manage under-performers out.
The book emphasizes the importance of culture, and the importance of preserving that culture by bringing in the best.
What can we learn as talent managers in healthcare from How Google Works? I've had a number of conversations with executives on the Health Leader Forge, and many of them, really a majority of them, say that the leadership lesson that they had to learn the hard way was around hiring and managing under-performers. So even though the dynamics of healthcare delivery are quite different than the frothy, ping-pong table, nap-nook filled world of internet start ups, the problem of talent management and finding the right people is still the main problem leaders face.
Schmidt and Rosenberg have some interesting recommendations - like creating a hiring committee where the hiring manager has a veto, but not the final decision to hire - makes a lot of sense. There needs to be a focus on slowing down the process to ensure organizational fit and appropriateness. Hiring by committee makes sense because as the authors point out "Hiring decisions are too important to be left in the hands of a manager who may or may not have a stake in the employee's success a year later" due to corporate movement of either the manager or the new hire (p. 121).
That's an interesting prescription and it ties back to The War for Talent, which argues that the single most important thing an executive can do is build their team.
The book highlights the fact that Google operates in the manner that Google manages human capital for talent. It is almost straight out of the pages of The War for Talent published back in 2001. Hire the best talent, take your time to get the best talent, help the best talent develop, manage under-performers out.
The book emphasizes the importance of culture, and the importance of preserving that culture by bringing in the best.
What can we learn as talent managers in healthcare from How Google Works? I've had a number of conversations with executives on the Health Leader Forge, and many of them, really a majority of them, say that the leadership lesson that they had to learn the hard way was around hiring and managing under-performers. So even though the dynamics of healthcare delivery are quite different than the frothy, ping-pong table, nap-nook filled world of internet start ups, the problem of talent management and finding the right people is still the main problem leaders face.
Schmidt and Rosenberg have some interesting recommendations - like creating a hiring committee where the hiring manager has a veto, but not the final decision to hire - makes a lot of sense. There needs to be a focus on slowing down the process to ensure organizational fit and appropriateness. Hiring by committee makes sense because as the authors point out "Hiring decisions are too important to be left in the hands of a manager who may or may not have a stake in the employee's success a year later" due to corporate movement of either the manager or the new hire (p. 121).
That's an interesting prescription and it ties back to The War for Talent, which argues that the single most important thing an executive can do is build their team.
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