Shared Narrative #2

We love to read. In fact, Product Narrative was started by a small group of readers and writers.

We recently learned from the Kwik Reading training that one of the best ways to have a better retention of what you’ve read is by sharing your reading notes and discuss them with others. Thus, we’re excited to introduce this as the 2nd format of our newsletter, Shared Narrative. We are hopeful this would spark more interesting discussions among our readers. And, as always, share your comments and thoughts about this new format on Twitter.

The first book we picked is Work Rules, by Laszlo Bock. He was the Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google Inc. There are many insights that have directly enriched our approach to bridge Product Management and People Ops. In case we haven’t mentioned previously, one of our focuses is to partner with tech-based product startups to help them scale, specifically by creating a healthy internal cadence. Our experience taught us that building a great product is not only about Engineering or Product Management or Business, but more importantly, it’s about aligning everyone in the company towards the same goal. And, we believe this requires a creative solution that fits nicely between product and people. This book has lots of goodies related to that.

So, let’s start:

1. You are a founder

Building an exceptional team or institution starts with a founder. But being a founder doesn’t mean starting a new company. It is within anyone’s grasp to be the founder and culture-creator of their own team, whether you are the first employee or joining a company that has existed for decades.

The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote, “All happy families resemble one another.” All successful organizations resemble one another as well. They possess a shared sense not just of what they produce, but of who they are and want to be. In their vision, they’ve thought through not just their origin, but also their destiny.

2. A mission that matters

A good company vision is the one that gives individuals’ work meaning, because it is a moral rather a business goal. Google’s mission provided a touchstone for keeping the culture strong, even as they grew from dozens of people to tens of thousands.

3. If you believe people are good, you must be unafraid to share information with them

Chris DiBona, leader of Google’s open-source efforts, defines it like this: “Assume that an information can be shared with the team, instead of assuming that no information can be shared. Restricting information should be a conscious effort, and you’d better have a good reason for doing so.”

As an example, consider Google’s code base, which is the collection of all the source code — or computer programs — that makes all their products work. This includes the code for almost everything they do, including Search, YouTube, AdWords, and AdSense. At Google, a newly hired software engineer gets access to almost all of their code on the first day.

The benefits of transparency:

• Everyone in the company knows what’s going on.
• ​Information sharing allows everyone to understand the difference in goals across different groups, avoiding internal rivalry.
• One of the serendipitous benefits of transparency is that simply by sharing data, performance improves. Example for this: Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, points to when New York State started requiring hospitals to post death rates from coronary artery bypass surgeries. Over the next four years, deaths from heart surgery fell 41 percent.

4. Giving employees a real say in how the company is run

In 2009, Google had doubled in size, growing to 20,222 employees by the end of 2009 from 10,674 at the end of 2006. But rather than announcing top-down corporate initiatives, their CFO, Patrick Pichette, put the power in Googler’s hands. He launched Bureaucracy Busters, a now-annual program where Googlers identify their biggest frustrations and help fix them. In the first round, Googlers submitted 570 ideas and voted more than 55,000 times. Most of the frustrations came from small, readily addressable issues. After implementing the changes Googlers asked for, they were happier.

5. Hiring the right person
Google has a unique approach in their interview: have a subordinate interview a prospective hire. It sends a strong signal to candidates about Google being non-hierarchical and it also helps prevent cronyism, where managers hire their old buddies for their new teams. They find that the best candidates leave subordinates feeling inspired or excited to learn from them.

Want to find out more . . .

Check out our website to find out why we set up Product Narrative.

Or you can read past editions of Shared Narrative here: #1

Read more of our articles here.

Have a great day!

- The Product Narrative Team

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