Topic > Google's Way of Tackling Problems

Traditionally, companies are built to focus on "creating shareholder value" based on a "culture of accountability." In such organizations, problem solving may end up focusing primarily on people rather than problems. In the book How Google Works, Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg describe how, in 2002, before Google's IPO, Larry Page walked into the office kitchen and posted some printouts of results from Google's AdWords engine. At the top, in big bold letters, he wrote: "THESE ADS SUCK." Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayRather than being an arrogant executive who publicly humiliates his hapless employees, he turned out to be a show of confidence, defining a difficult problem that he knew talented engineers would like to solve. The next day, a group of engineers shared a solution that not only solved AdWords' problem, but helped turn Google into the major money machine it is today. Greg Satell writes in his Harvard Business Review column on organizational culture (Satell, G. 2014), that Google, in essence, has built a culture that attacks problems, not people. Greg goes on to outline the following four principles that stem from the premise that culture defines an organization and how it plays a critical role in its success: People want to do good work. Rather than threaten to fire someone or demand “accountability,” Page offered his engineers a difficult and interesting problem to solve, confident that someone would take up the challenge. With enough eyes, every bug is superficial. The page did not contact the AdWords team but reported the problem to the kitchen where the entire company would surely have seen it. People perform better in activities that interest them. This incident occurred in 2002, just as Google was preparing for its IPO. The problem with AdWords was a serious obstacle to achieving revenue. The AdWords glitch was a complex problem for most people, it was relatively simple for search engineers who quickly realized that implementing an "ad relevance score" and ranking ads that way would be a perfect solution . Great leaders provide a sense of mission and purpose. Talent is only effective when driven by passion and purpose.