Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead

All it takes is a belief that people are fundamentally good—and enough courage to treat your people like owners instead of machines. Machines do their jobs; owners do whatever is needed to make their companies and teams successful.

Leadership.

The third key difference in our approach, therefore, is to have a subordinate interview a prospective hire.

the way we de-emphasize role-related knowledge in hiring leaves us a bit vulnerable to this issue, because we like to hire people who may not know how to do a job. We have faith that almost all of them will figure it out, and along the way are more likely to invent a novel solution than someone who’s “been there, done that.”

managers’ results are not factored into performance ratings or pay decisions. We want employees to be scathingly honest, and managers to be open to improvement rather than defensive.

Here is a sample of the decisions managers at Google cannot make unilaterally:

The first step to mass empowerment is making it safe for people to speak up.

Tied with tests of general cognitive ability are structured interviews (26 percent), where candidates are asked a consistent set of questions with clear criteria to assess the quality of responses.

three defining aspects of our culture: mission, transparency, and voice.

Google’s self assessment templates.