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Google's Idea of Productivity Is a Bad Fit For Many Other Workplaces
New submitter rjupstate writes "Google places a lot of value on the spontaneous creativity that can occur when two employees from completely different parts of the company meet. It's an ideal that Google has perfected over the years, but it's not something that will work for most other organizations. Executives trying to replicate Google's approach could even create major problems among their workforces."
While google do this and I'm sure are very good at it, it's not Google's invention and it's certainly not new.
This is/was one of the major roles that the US National Labs play. Compared to univesities there is a lot more mixing between divisions and as a result a lot of very interesting science gets done because new and unexpected things pop up.
Of course now that they're run by nice efficient profit making private companies rather than hippie commie inefficient public universities, that's pretty much been killed and all semblance of productivity has gone. But that's a rant for another day.
If companies think that this kind of innication nd productivity is a bad fit then it's because they're assuming implicitly that they won't be around for more than a year. If they're going to be around you need to develop new products and also develop better ways of creating/designing/building those products. If you're not doing that, then you risk losing out to someone who does.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
When a company is successful - especially a sexy tech company - other companies always seem to try to copy their working practices to try and emulate that success. 20 years ago it was Microsoft. Before that it was IBM. These days it's Google.
Well, I can reveal the one thing you need to be as successful as Google: Have an effective monopoly on internet searches. Or Operating systems. Or computers.
The thing is, Google can be as inefficient as it likes. It has a hefty cash cow bringing in the money. Perhaps Google's idea here works, perhaps it doesn't. The fact that Google does it doesn't make it magic. You need a product to make a lot of money.
I used to find out more interesting stuff in a couple of minutes in the smoking shelter than in any organised meeting. I work in IT infrastructure btw.
Any examples of new _profitable_ and _innovative_ (copying others doesn't count for much) Google stuff that has come out of Google's idea of productivity?
So far they're still mostly making money from ads right? What else?
I doubt most companies will be so happy that their employees come out with innovative stuff that doesn't actually make the company more money.
Well yes of course. If there's one thing I have learned from reading the Harvard Business Review is that to build a successful company your management structure needs to be flexible yet strict, specific and diverse, your company needs to have a flat organisational chart with few managers, it needs many levels of management to keep it under control. You need to keep your employees happy by letting them think for themselves, and you need to control their every movement and thought throughout the day. You need to diversify and yet focus on your core competencies.
The reality is that the only universally unsuccessful business strategy is thinking that simply copying some successful company will guarantee you success. In any other case I'm sure I can find an example in the Harvard Business Review where {insert management fad of the week} will be the best thing your company can't do without.
I work in a small R & D team set up as an internal joint venture between two daughter companies of the same group. Some time ago, the other daughter - i.e. the one I do not belong to - withdrew its commitment. We decided to carry on, on our own. What happens now is that our people go informally to engineers and stakeholders of the "other" daughter, and that work is being done as before - albeit without the formal blessing of management, almost in a subversive way. Do I like it better this way ? Sure, it feels like working, suddenly and again, in a combination of an open-source project and a start-up. Is it frustrating ? Yes, whenever I try to get some resources for a task longer than a few days. Overall, though, it's better.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
I used to work at General Atomics's original campus in La Jolla, which was created in the 60s.
The campus was mainly a series of concentric circles. The main circular building had a curvature which was "calculated" to maximize random interactions with scientists and engineers outside your normal working group while also giving an illusion of working in a small group. There were pools, gyms, baseball fields and support buildings around the outside and along the radial lines. The center of the circle was a large cafeteria.
This was all great as long as nuclear power was going to save the world and money was rolling in. When the company hit hard times the ball fields were turned into office rentals and many non essential services were stopped.
When the company once again was making money with military hardware, the new buildings were simpler and located in a less expensive area of San Diego.