This will motivate employees to do their jobs better and contribute in ways a top-down manager could never envision. Give them deeper context about the business along with details about why things are the way they are. Openness shows employees you think they are trustworthy and have good judgment. Bock says that if you let people be free, they will absolutely amaze you.īe transparent and share information.

If you are not nervous, you have not given them enough.

Give people slightly more trust, freedom and authority than you give them now. If deemed effective, the change will remain. If you have to pull back authority in the future, Bock suggests you tell employees each change is a test for a few months. You will feel vulnerable when you give away some authority to employees, but that is exactly what must happen for genuine trust to grow. Be transparent and give them a voice to help shape the team or organization. Ask what frustrates them in their work and let them fix it. Trust your employees to behave like a founder and create an ethos of ownership in the team. If you think of yourself as a founder with a mission that matters, so will your employees. That is what inspires Googlers to constantly innovate and push beyond anything they can imagine right now. Google knows it will never achieve its aspirational mission because there will always be more information to organize and more ways to make it useful.

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Show them how it contributes to a greater good or benefits others. This belief will profoundly impact how you treat employees, the freedom and empowerment you give them in the business and the resulting happiness they will feel about their work.Įveryone wants to feel like what they do matters, so help your employees see the meaning in their work. 'If you believe people are good, they should be free,' Bock says. He credits Google's distinctive management philosophies and its unique approaches to people, culture, talent and leadership as the reason why Google is recognized as the most sought-after place to work on the planet.Īll that's needed to replicate Google's people success in your own workplace is the belief that people are fundamentally good, and a commitment to create a culture of 'high-freedom,' which values liberty, authority and ownership. 'Why are Google employees so happy?' Laszlo Bock, Google's innovative Senior Vice President of People Operations, offers his best answers to this and more puzzling questions in his book Work Rules! Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead.īock shares valuable insights and experiences from 15 years as a leader of Google's strategy to attract, develop and retain the world's top talent.

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