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How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

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Garvin’s article How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management describes Google’s unique approach to management. Google prides itself with having the best, most highly satisfied employees in the industry. A majority of its employees are engineers that prefer spending time creating and building, which makes it difficult for management to exist. Many of Google’s employees are also highly independent and do not like being micromanaged. Garvin (2013) described a 2002 experiment where Google made their organization flat, eliminating engineering managers, the company realized that managers do more than just manage projects. Managers contributed to the company, “by communicating strategy, helping employees prioritize projects, facilitating …show more content…

Even though I believe Google’s management system to be effective and the article’s explanation of the system to be credible and valid, I do not believe it will fit the culture of my company. Working in the restaurant industry, our employees are not as technically minded as the employees of Google. From experience, direct management and more guidance are needed in a customer-service directed atmosphere. While my boss may find the surveys and employee improvement strategies to be helpful, Google’s exact system is not comparable to the restaurant industry. One HR issue this article can be applied to is ineffective performance reviews and training for management. Many companies base their performance reviews around what a manager is doing wrong, but creating a more evidence-based survey focused around specific strengths a manger should excel in helps the corporation to be future-based. Like Google, the company can identify eight characteristics of good mangers and create the survey based around those eight pillars. If a manger is deficient in a certain category they can take classes to strengthen that specific characteristics rather than have to sit through a general training highlighting things they are already good at. Anther HR issue the article may be helpful for is defining why a manager is important. Some industries are struggling with

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