Innovation starts here: 8 Google principles to build a culture of innovation

If you ever thought Google culture was great, you are wrong. Think again. It’s GENIUS. You have to see it by yourself to believe it. No wonder why they are one of the most innovative companies in the world. Here is why.

A Mckinsey research shows that, even though companies are placing more importance on innovation, fewer than 25 percent are serious about it and involved in setting innovation targets and budgets. Google, on the other hand, builds its competitive advantage around innovation.

Innovation starts here

Thanks to ASQ LATAM (American Society of Quality), I was selected to be part of a tour to visit Google headquarters in Silicon Valley, California. When you get into the Google complex, this what you see: people getting to the building riding a colorful Google bike, or maybe taking the free Google bus. You can also see lots of parking sport for electric cars, because yes, charging is free at the complex. Breakfast, lunch or even dinner are all free 24-7 for the employees. There are pools, gyms, soccer fields, bike trails. You can even see lemon trees being taken care of by the employees, or an autonomous robot mowing the grass. You don’t get to see cubicles, you see meeting rooms, tables and cafes everywhere. Employees are spread all around the buildings, taking their computers with them. What is this all about?

It’s all about building a culture of innovation

Innovation cannot be dictated. You cannot simply ask people to come up with the best ideas. What you can do is build and support a context where innovation can flourish organically. How does this context look like? You need these three ingredients:

• Clear purpose: Ideas and projects being worked need to be aligned to the mission of the company, therefore everybody knows the mission of the company.
• Culture of teamwork: Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt idea of a context like this is the one that makes people feel comfortable to come up with new ideas, free to share them and able to find a team to implement them.
• Leaders that facilitate and coach employees to build the purpose in every project

Ideas come up from small teams, so all that google has to do is hire employees, let them know the mission of the company, make sure they get to know other Googlers and meet comfortably at the common areas and restaurants, and then, organically they will look for teammates that want to work together to accomplish a goal aligned to the mission.

The story of innovation has not changed. It has always been a small team of people who have a new idea, typically not understood by people around them and their executives.

—Eric Schmidt, Chairman, Google

Dogfooding the Google way

Google also enjoys “dogfooding”, that is testing and using their own products. They also do researches with their employees. Two of their major projects were Google’s Project Oxygen research where the People Analytics team studied what makes a great manager and Project Aristotle to study effective teams. They also Google have defined a set of principles to help companies build a culture of innovation:

8 innovation principles

1. Think 10X: True innovation happens when you try to improve something by 10 times. If you dream big, almost impossible, you may not accomplish it 100%, but for sure you will get further than you thought you would.
2. Focus on the user, not the competition. Google is very specific on training everyone, including visitors, that the user is key. Everything Google does is focused on satisfying the user, not the customer. The approach is a pull strategy, where if they build a product that satisfies the user (anyone who uses google maps, gmail, etc.), then the customer (companies who pay Google Ads) will pay the price.
3. Fail fast and learn. Launch, then keep listening to the user. When they launch a new product, they do a “soft launch” first within a small audience and ask for feedback. Nobody wants to fail, but Google founders know that to innovate you may have to make the user try different options first, meaning that with some options you fail, some others you succeed. The key here is to help the employee overcome resistance to fail, by fostering trying and experimenting and not penalizing mistakes.
4. Share everything you can. The Mission and objectives are shared everywhere for everyone. You can find ads on the walls looking for candidates for a job, or inside an article the restroom for you to read. There is information everywhere. They even have a weekly meeting that everybody can attend delivered by the founders and the CEO. Google Ads algorithm, for example, was born when an employee saw the problem shared in the Google kitchen. Ideas can come from anyone, it doesn’t matter their position or hierarchy, as long as the idea is supported by data.
5. Use data, not opinions: opinions or gut feelings are not enough. If you have data, you can challenge anyone, even a manager.
6. Look for ideas everywhere, as long as they are aligned with the purpose. It is a culture of “yes” more than “no”.
7. Hire the right people: Google has a very robust hiring process. More than knowledge or expertise, they focus on hiring “people who are great at lots of things, love big challenges and welcome change”.  
8. Use the 70/20/10 model: 70% of the time of the employee is dedicated to the core business, while they can use the rest of the time to projects they are passionate about. 20% of the time can be used for projects related to the core business, and 10% unrelated to the core business. They think that “In the long run, a few of those unrelated 10% ideas will turn into core businesses that become part of the 70%.”.

Innovation can happen in a brainstorming session, but disciplined and continuous innovation can only happen in a context built to foster it, with a budget and goals allocated to make it happen.  

Lu Paulise

luciana@biztorming.com

@lupaulise

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