Follow Up: Google Business Practices
June 23rd, 2005 by Ethan
After some more reflection I think that even if these new endeavors fail, Google continues to hit the nail right on the head. Their engineers work in a stimulating, challenging environment and that keeps generating unique and profitable ideas. It has been widely publicized that Google engineers are expected to spend one workday per week on a project of personal interest.
Think about that for a minute… How shocked and/or pleased would you be if your boss said,
You know what you should do? You should take some time off of The Big Marketing Campaign to work on something that really excites you. Take some time to think about it, and let me know what you would like to work on.
Wow, what kind of attitude and productivity change would that provoke? The vast majority of the exciting, crazy stuff that Google has made is a direct result of this program (if you can call it that). They continue to push the envelope in their business practices, and that is one reason that they are so successful.
p.s. Sorry that last entry was so long. After posting, I realized that it sort of dragged on. I’m still working on being concise.
That is pretty interesting. I didn’t know that google did that. It is smart on their part though. The less challenged a person is, the less productive a person is. Let them create their own challenges and I bet it really increases productivity.