The Googles Organization Culture and Chaos at Google - Case Study Example

Googley Way of Working within Google’s Organization Culture Table of Contents Introduction 2 The Google Culture 3 Chaos at Google 5 Chaos as a Resource 6 Chaos Management 8 Conclusion 10 References 12 Introduction Google Inc. was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The company is headquartered at Mountain View, California. The major milestones of Google reflect the technological genius and innovative excellence of its founders and members of its management. The mission of Google is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (Google-website-a, n.d.). The corporate culture that imbues throughout Google is highly informal and in complete accordance with the fact that it is an unconventional organization. It has also been successful in maintaining a small-company like feeling throughout its course of outstanding growth (Google-website-b, n.d.). Google has a global network of offices. The company believes in recruiting local talent in order to infuse the local culture into the work environment. This is also reflected in the expression of all its offices. Owing to the immense diversity in its employee base, the global team of Google is a prototype of the company’s global audience (Google-website-c, n.d.). The highly diversified organizational culture at Google, combined with a meticulously maintained informal environment, leads to organizational chaos. The company has shown extraordinary expertise in embracing chaos and transforming it into an invaluable profit-center. The Google Culture Google has experienced immense growth since its inception. Despite its successful journey to the top, the company maintains the feeling of a small company. The general culture is completely informal and communication is not limited by hierarchical differences. This helps in enhancing innovation as everyone at Google comfortably shares ideas, opinions and perspectives with each other. The informal culture also enables Googlers (as Google employees are nicknamed as) to multitask with ease and efficiency. Google offices reflect the true spirit of cultural diversity of the organization. Located across the globe these offices have certain essential elements in common. They house indigenous expressions in order to showcase their geographic location and personality, undifferentiated workspace, uninterrupted connectivity, provision for recreation, employee interest groups, wide range of cafés serving nutritious lunch and dinner, and break rooms loaded with various refreshments (Google-website-c, n.d.). The philosophy of Google is embodied in the words of its cofounder Larry Page, “We don’t just want you to have a great job. We want you to have a great life. We provide you with everything you need to be productive and happy on and off the clock” (Scott, 2008). The philosophy of considering employees as invaluable resources is also reflected through the company’s HR team (known as people operations in Google’s parlance) which aims at escalating this corporate discipline to higher levels. Perhaps the only common trait shared by Googlers in its pursuit of worldwide growth is “a commitment to preserving Google’s uncommon culture” (Google-website-d, n.d.). Another corporate aspect of Google is that it is an equal opportunity employer, which means it doesn’t discriminate its employees on any basis (Google-website-e, n.d.). This aspect multiplies Google’s diversity manifold owing to its global scale of operation. The Google culture exudes the fact that Google is an unconventional organization (Google-website-b, n.d.). The degree of diversity and flexibility that prevails within Google as an integral part of its overall activities being extraordinarily high, it is not surprising that chaos forms part and parcel of the company’s working spirit. Google actually thrives on the exemplary diversity and the chaos that arises from it. In the subsequent chapters of this report we will analyze how Google turns its intrinsic chaos into a strategic resource and achieves competitive advantage by making the best use of it. Chaos at Google Let us imagine that the headquarters of a company is a humongous cradle of chaos. The company desires to thrive on a potion of disorder and disarray and, as an icing on the cake, there is a constant uncertainty. These two statements will definitely be sufficient to draw a bleak picture about the company. The strikingly true fact is that the company is not a figment but one of the most successful business stories of our times, the Google Inc.! In reality, chaos is the lifeblood of the company. Right from the time of its inception, Google has religiously nurtured chaos within its working environment and has generated huge profits from the positive outcomes of the same. Google prefers to live on the edge and hence its management style is acutely unusual. Being a forerunner in its segment, Google often takes huge risks. In the course of moving very fast and over performing the company often commit mistakes that amount to large financial losses. But then, it patronizes such mistakes as part of managing a crew of highly creative professionals (Lashinsky, 2006). At Google, “mistakes are viewed as tools for learning and employees are encouraged to come up with outrageous ideas. The informal environment – there is no dress code or rules for behavior – recognizes that the most valuable resource for the company is the mind and thought processes of its employees” (Hisrich, 2009). The company actually prospers by managing the chaos. Chaos as a Resource As we all know, organizations are not machines but are quite intricate social systems. They are composed of human beings who have their individual intelligence, thought process, sentiments, interests and ideas. Moreover, they have their own egos and value systems. In order to enhance organizational functioning, it is necessary to decentralize the control mechanism and to empower the employees. This helps in speeding up communication and hence decision making. While control limits the degree of chaos, decentralization of the same increases chaotic tendency (Wit & Meyer, 2005). In the backdrop of a highly dynamic business environment, wherein the most expensive resource is time, most successful organizations designate high performance teams (HPTs), consisting of highly intelligent and creative employees, with more vital tasks. These teams are well knit, intra-organizational communities which are exceptional in terms of membership, resource allocation and, of course, performance. These teams are, more than often, cross functional and by virtue of having high cognitive abilities can set their own goals. Owing to such characteristics, both volume and flow of information within these teams are much higher as compared to that in other teams. This often gives rise to intra-group conflicts which in turn transcend to the level of chaos. It is also worth noting that conflicting ideas accelerate the HPT members to come up with more sustainable ideas. Hence the management should not worry as long as chaos is beneficial. The problem that managers face with HPTs is that regular command-and-control methods can’t be applied to them because of their community-like composition. Issues related to HPTs, if not addressed to in an empathetic and collaborative manner may have a detrimental effect on the passion of these teams. Thus, owing to the invaluable importance of HPTs in shaping the future of an organization, management should consider chaos as an important organizational resource which either ensues during the course of activities of these unconventional, intra-organizational communities or triggers their enhanced performance (Denning, 2006). Chaos may also arise from changes in the organization’s external environment which is susceptible to a multitude of tremors. It can even originate from any change within the organization. Chaos Management From the discussion under ‘Chaos as a Resource’, it is clear that a certain level of chaos is required to stimulate creative HPTs. While appreciating this idea, we must also understand the detrimental effects that it might have on the HPTs as well as on the organization there is an instance of negative feedback, i.e., the team itself gives a negative response to the chaos that has arisen out of its activities. Under circumstances like this, there is a need for chaos management. Moreover, for companies which essentially thrive on chaos (Google Inc. being a perfect example) by using it as an invaluable resource, chaos management is a vital necessity. Some scholars suggest that the management should adopt extra careful and reflexive methods while managing chaos. One has to divert from conventional schools of management thoughts and increase empowerment of HPTs in order to facilitate self-organization and integration (Collins, 2000). The environment – both internal and external – of an organization being sensitive to fluctuations, an organization, as well as its employees, continuously feels the tremors. One way to stabilize the external tremors is by enhancing the flow of information, while mentoring, training and development and counseling are some of the management tools that can take care of internal tremors (Harigopal, 2006). An efficient chaos management machinery ensures that chaos is channelized in the direction of organizational success. It is extremely necessary for fast growing companies which prefer to stride on the edge in order to manifest their corporate goals. Google fits the bill for an organization which requires such machinery. But the philosophy of Google necessitates it to have a constant presence of chaos for its business excellence to be achieved. This is because the entire workforce of Google has a high creative quotient and hence requires chaos as a driving force to express their talents. Conclusion Google Inc. exemplifies and perhaps epitomizes organizational chaos. By virtue of being a highly dynamic organization which strives to overachieve and outperform within a short time span, it operates like a high performance machine. Google identifies its employees as its most valuable resources as they provide the company with an outstanding knowledge capital that undergoes creative transformation within the organization to deliver impeccable output and value. Chaos is an integral component of Google. While most of the global organizations experience varying degrees of chaos as a byproduct of intellectual transactions, chaos forms the base of developmental strategies at Google. The organizational culture is completely informal, thereby making a set of prescribed disciplines passé. Absence of formal communication barriers and of a dress code makes Google offices resemble college campuses. Hence it is not hard to imagine the levels of chaos that prevail within the organization. In accordance with its objective to reach out to a global audience, Google employs a highly diversified workforce who represents nearly all the nationalities. Moreover, it is an equal opportunity employer. These factors, combined with the fact that Googlers are outstanding in terms of intelligence quotient (IQ) and creativity, further add to the chaos. Reiterating the fact that chaos serves as the foundation of Google’s developmental strategies, it is worth observing that the company fully understands the requirements of creative individuals. This is partly due to the fact that both of its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are highly creative, technology geniuses. While most companies have to think differently for specially designed HPTs, Google does not strain itself in taking such measures as it is a giant collection of numerous HPTs. Hence managing creativity comes naturally to this business wonder. Chaos breeds alternative thinking. Google understands it better than every other company and hence it provides dynamic Googlers with chaos in order to readily stimulate their unconventional thought process. Googlers are different from employees of normal organizations by having abilities to think alternatively and producing results which others can hardly anticipate under normal circumstances. By being a truly unconventional organization, Google defies all tenets of traditional management practices and doesn’t suffocate its employees within the confines of corporate formalities. This makes Google a home away from home for Googlers and encourages them to freely express their creative talents. By imbuing chaos throughout its way of working, Google makes the best use of what it needs most – the intelligence, thought process and creativity of Googlers and thus sets an example of how chaos can be an ingredient of a successful organizational culture. [Total Word Count: 1915] References Collins, D. 2000. Management Fads and Buzzwords: Critical-Practical Perspectives. Routledge. Denning, S. 2006. The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling. Wiley-India. Google-website-a. No Date. Quick Profile. [Online]. Available at: http://www.google.com/corporate/facts.html [Accessed on January 20, 2010]. Google-website-b. No Date. Life at Google. [Online]. Available at: http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/lifeatgoogle/index.html [Accessed on January 20, 2010]. Google-website-c. No Date. The Google Culture. [Online]. Available at: http://www.google.com/corporate/culture.html [Accessed on January 20, 2010]. Google-website-d. No Date. Human Resources. [Online]. Available at: http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/profiles/hr.html [Accessed on January 20, 2010]. Google-website-e. No Date. Let’s Work Together. [Online]. Available at: http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/index.html [Accessed on January 20, 2010]. Harigopal, K. 2006. Management of Organizational Change: Leveraging Transformation. Response Books-SAGE Publications. Hisrich, D. R. 2009. International Entrepreneurship: Starting, Developing, and Managing a Global Venture. SAGE Publications. Lashinsky, A. October 2, 2006. Chaos by Design. CNN Money. [Online]. Available at: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/02/8387489/index.htm [Accessed on January 20, 2010]. Scott, V. 2008. Google. Greenwood Publishing Group. Wit, B. & Meyer, R. 2005. Strategy Synthesis: Resolving Strategy Paradoxes to Create Competitive Advantage. Cengage Learning EMEA. Read More