Management and Leadership Paper on Google

Management and Leadership Paper on Google

As with its technology, Google has selected to ignore standard wisdom in designing its business. Google started with seed money from angel investors and brought together two venture capital firms that are competing to fund its first equity round. When the dotcom boom exploded, its competitors spent millions of dollars on marketing campaigns to “build brand,” but Google focused instead in quietly building a better search engine. The word rapidly extended from one satisfied use to another. With its google.com site where it has enhanced search technology and high volume of traffic, managers at Google recognized search services and advertising as two initial opportunities for generating revenue (Google, 2007). The company operates the leading search engine that offers targeted search results from more than 8 billion web pages (Hoovers, 2007). Google generates revenue through ads that are targeted by keywords and also sells ads across a network with over 200,000 affiliated websites. Founders Larry Page and Sergy Brin each have nearly about 30% voting control of the company (Hoovers, 2007). Google has its management and leadership well-handled and for this reason it happens that they are among the best-run companies in the technology sector.

One of the secrets behind the search engine besides of its internally developed software, made-to-order hardware, and open source is its people management (Claburn, 2006). Google managers tend to be reserved on the IT strategy subject. They are reluctant to discuss specific vendors or products and even with their servers and data centers. Behind its simplicity being apparent, is a mash-up of internally developed software, made-to-order hardware, artificial intelligence, obsession with performance and an unconventional approach to people management. Google is different with respect to making its applications original and unique. The IT infrastructure behind Google’s Web services matters to the hundreds of engineers who are dedicated to Google’s mission of organizing the world’s information and creating it to be universally useful and accessible. That occurs when IT plan is called for that matches the company’s business vision in scope and ambition. IT management at Google is decentralized (Claburn, 2006). The company has neither a CIO nor CTO, but Google is full of senior level engineers and other skilled technologists. Google employs a matrix management system. This is where managers have many direct reports and engineers report to multiple people. Engineers mostly get their directions and critiques from their project leaders. Like other things at Google, computer animation and artificial intelligence perform some of the sound work. The company’s goal is to automate as many things as they can to make fun things to happen. One example is the tracking system that they have to automatically place a job applicant’s information, provide a job candidate’s resume to a hiring manager, offers questions to ask, and sends the manager an e-mail after the interview asking what the manager thought of the candidate. Google’s job interviews can include writing code, logic questions, discussing about software architecture, and in general proving to Google’s brain trust that the applicant is a fast learner as the company does not keep people working on the same issues or problems for very long.

On the other hand, Google managers are taking leadership seriously and the company believes that leadership is a vital key in the company’s growth and success. While growing rapidly, Google still maintains a small company feel. Google’s emphasis on innovation means that each employee is a hands-on contributor. In a little way of its corporate hierarchy, everyone wears several hats (Google, 2007). For instance, the international webmaster that makes the company’s holiday logos spends some time translating the entire site to Korean or the chief operations engineers is a licensed neurosurgeon as well. Everyone in the company realizes that they are equally part of Google’s success. Additionally, Google’s hiring policy is aggressively non-discriminatory and always favors ability over experience. Google is global and has offices around the world and Google engineering centers are recruiting local talents. When Googlers are not at work, they pursue interests form cross-country cycling to wine tasting. As the company expands it development team, it persists on looking for those who are willing to contribute an obsessive commitment to generating search excellence and having an immense time performing it. Google is mainly known for its relaxed corporate culture that is evocative in the Dot-com boom. In January 2007, it was cited by Fortune Magazine as the no. 1 (of 100) best company