This Is What It Looks Like When a Google Manager Gets Feedback
15 Jan. 2014 | Comments (0)
Using a rigorous, data-driven hiring process, Google goes to great lengths to attract young, ambitious self-starters and original thinkers. It screens candidates’ résumés for markers that indicate potential to excel there — especially general cognitive ability. People who make that first cut are then carefully assessed for initiative, flexibility, collaborative spirit, evidence of being well-rounded, and other factors that make a candidate “Googley.”
The thing is, many of those who make the cut are engineers, who typically view management as a distraction from “real” work, not as a useful activity. And that presents a challenge: If your highly skilled, handpicked hires don’t value management in the traditional sense, how can you run the place effectively? How do you turn doubters into believers, persuading them to spend time managing others?
By applying the same analytical rigor and tools that you used to hire them in the first place. For Google, that has meant using its own data to prove the importance of management, as well as surveying employees and conducting double-blind interviews to identify key behaviors of effective managers — and then providing individuals with concrete, useful feedback in those areas. Below is a fictitious, interactive example based on the type of feedback a Google manager would receive.
To View the Infographic Click Here
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About the Author:David A. Garvin
David A. Garvin is the C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.
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