​​BOOK SUMMARY| Work Rules!, by Laszlo Bock 
​​
​​#HR: Recruitment, Culture, People
​​
​​
​
​Based on WORK Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That will Transform How you live and lead; Laszlo Bock.
​​—
​​
​​“If you are committed to transforming your team or your organization, hiring better is the single best way to do it.”
​​
​​“Every single role is important.  The different between an average administrative assistant and an exceptional one is profound…”
​​
​​"Elaine D. Pulakos and Ryan S. O’Leary, “Why Is Performance Management Broken?” Industrial and Organizational Psychology 4, no. 2 (2011): 146–164." from "Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead" by Laszlo Bock
​​
​​—
​​
​​
​
​RULES
  • ​​Become a Founder
  • ​​Build a culture that makes people act like founders
  • ​​The Essence is Freedom
  • ​​Culture
  • ​​Mission is central
  • ​​Develop one that matters
  • ​​Avoid “profit, shareholders, etc.”
  • ​​Values and assumptions underneath matter the most
  • ​​Give people more trust, freedom and authority that you are comfortable with.
  • ​​If you are not nervous, you haven’t given them enough
  • ​​Network of Culture Club (to help with Distributed workforce)
  • ​​Default to OPEN
  • ​​Communication
  • ​​Email
  • ​​Hiring - #1 activity in any organization
  • ​​Invest in HR in recruiting as a Core competence
  • ​​Hire only the best, no exceptions and take your time.
  • ​​Top notch person is worth 300x an average person.
  • ​​Take your time
  • ​​It’s worth it.
  • ​​Create a database and track the best
  • ​​only 10% of applicants will be top performers
  • ​​Hire someone/people better than you in a meaningful way
  • ​​Don’t let managers make hiring decisions (cmte system)
  • ​​It gives them too much power over their teams
  • ​​Don’t hire exclusively for smarts
  • ​​Find the best people who will be successful in the context of your organization
  • ​​… and make everyone around them successful
  • ​​Accomplishments matter more than pedigree (education, grades, etc.)
  • ​​Sourcing - How to find Exceptional Candidates
  • ​​Get the best referrals by being excruciatingly specific
  • ​​Describe to team exactly what you are looking for
  • ​​Make recruiting part of everyone’s job
  • ​​Measure it
  • ​​Pay for it
  • ​​Promote based on it
  • ​​Ask your best networked people to spend more time sourcing best hires
  • ​​People refer for intrinsic reasons
  • ​​They love company and want people/friends to be a part of it
  • ​​Develop a white-glove service for people referred by employees
  • ​​Don’t be afraid to try crazy things to get the attention of best people
  • ​​Adverts
  • ​​Hiring a whole team and keeping them right where they are based, rather than moving them
  • ​​Build a candidate Database (gHire)
  • ​​Tracking the best candidates and referrals from team
  • ​​Track them on a continuous basis (year after year)
  • ​​Keep in touch with them 
  • ​​Data-Driven 100% Process; Don’t trust your Gut, is usual wrong
  • ​​Set Bar High for Quality
  • ​​Bar must be defined in an objective fashion
  • ​​Create a Scorecard for every role/job
  • ​​Never compromise. Ever.
  • ​​Only hire people who are better than you.
  • ​​Find your own candidates
  • ​​LinkedIN
  • ​​Google+
  • ​​Alumni Database
  • ​​Professional Associations
  • ​​Assess Candidates Objectively
  • ​​Include subordinates and peers in the interviews
  • ​​Make sure interviewers write good notes
  • ​​Have an unbiased group of people make the actual hiring decision
  • ​​Track the data - periodically compare hire recommendation to hire rate and hire performance 
  • ​​Weed out the bad interviewers
  • ​​Culture is a key attribute, never compromise on it.
  • ​​Say no to candidates that won’t fit the cultural mold
  • ​​Use/Emphasize the Average Scores
  • ​​Research shows that is have 
  • ​​Give Candidates a reason to join
  • ​​Repeatable Hiring Process
  • ​​Interview team
  • ​​Cross-functional interviewer
  • ​​Subordinates 
  • ​​HR/Recruiters
  • ​​Backdoor references
  • ​​Develop structured Interview questions
  • ​​Search online for sources
  • ​​Much better predictor of future performance
  • ​​goo.gl/UtCBsi
  • ​​Avoid the pitfalls of Unconscious Bias
  • ​​Predictors of Performance
  • ​​Work Sample
  • ​​General Cognitive Ability
  • ​​Capacity to learn and raw intelligence
  • ​​Have professionals do the initial (Remote, Video) evaluation/Screen
  • ​​Focus on the most important hiring attributes upfront
  • ​​for example - problem solving and learning ability
  • ​​Weekly meeting on hiring and review
  • ​​Hiring Cmte Reviews and determines whether to move forward
  • ​​Cmte: Directors, VPs, responsible for various units
  • ​​can’t vote on candidate that will be part of own team
  • ​​Hiring Review Packet contains (50-60 pages)
  • ​​External reference checks
  • ​​Interviewer Scores and Feedback
  • ​​on each interview question
  • ​​Detailed Feedback on each candidate answer based on key (4) hiring attributes
  • ​​Detailed candidate background
  • ​​Assessment and Interviews
  • ​​Equal weighting to entire hiring commttee
  • ​​Average assessment scores
  • ​​no single assessment by itself is that useful.
  • ​​Use/Focus on the Average Rating
  • ​​Measure the Process Continuously
  • ​​Mass Empowerment/Surveys/Feedback
  • ​​Use Data to take Action, 100% of the time.
  • ​​Annual or Semi-Annual Surveys
  • ​​Have People work as teams on solutions identified
  • ​​Eliminate Status Symbols
  • ​​Big offices
  • ​​Titles
  • ​​Most powerful message to send to team
  • ​​Use hierarchy in decision making, breaking ties.
  • ​​All issues need a decision maker
  • ​​Don’t tie survey results on departments to performance ratings/pay decisions
  • ​​This allows employees to be scathingly honest and managers to be open to improvement rather then defensive.
  • ​​Make decisions based on data, not based on manager’s opinions
  • ​​Find ways for people to shape their work and the company
  • ​​Expect a lot
  • ​​Give people freedom, but expect high quality performance (p. 148 - “Do I need to review this?”)
  • ​​Give team opportunity to step-up, give managers more time to deal with real challenges
  • ​​Ask the CEO any question at any time.
  • ​​Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, 1990 - A Theory of Goal Setting & Task Performance
  • ​​Performance Management;
  • ​​Promotion Decision should be made Committee
  • ​​Peer Feedback is essential to the promotion packet
  • ​​Consider allowing engineers and PM to self-nominate for Promotions
  • ​​Sales people too, but that could be challenging with wave of nominations 
  • ​​Use a simple set of Ratings, 5:
  • ​​5:Superb
  • ​​4:Strongly Exceeds Expectations
  • ​​3:Exceeds Expectations
  • ​​2:Consistently Meet Expectations
  • ​​1:Needs Improvement
  • ​​Make templates more specific, reduces time.
  • ​​Develop training and feedback tools for management and team around performance
  • ​​Bonus/Variable based on the Median of all Salaries of all people in that Job
  • ​​…Rather than 10%-20% on the base they negotiated, when a base was negotiated (this old works against women)
  • ​​Set Goals Correctly
  • ​​OKR method with cascading goals
  • ​​Everyone can see everyone’s goals
  • ​​CEO evaluates company’s performance on OKRs
  • ​​Set OKR as ambitious goals - make sure they are very specific
  • ​​No one should achieve 100% (sand bagging)
  • ​​Performance Review based on:
  • ​​OKR
  • ​​Peer Review
  • ​​Calibration (read)
  • ​​Gather Peer Feedback
  • ​​Use online tools, survey questions
  • ​​Focus on two questions, example 
  • ​​1: What is the single thing this person does best?
  • ​​2: What is one thing they can improve to be better and have more impact?
  • ​​Google Sheets has a survey tool
  • ​​Employees need to list all their projects for the year with a short description:
  • ​​Their roles 
  • ​​Their accomplishment
  • ​​Max room for text is 512 characters.
  • ​​Use Calibration process to Finalize Ratings
  • ​​Managers sit together and review people as a group
  • ​​Intel did this very well
  • ​​It eliminates biases
  • ​​Good for the culture to for people to sit together, reconnect and affirm what company values
  • ​​Calibrate Ratings, Roles, Performance measures across company
  • ​​Make sure it is evidence-based, not based on recent performance (bias)
  • ​​Split Reward conversation from development conversations.
  • ​​Traditional performance management systems make a big mistake.
  • ​​The combine
  • ​​Combining the two kills learning and growth, this is important to A-players. (P. 170; Prasad’s Note)
  • ​​This is true at companies of any size
  • ​​ie. Annual review in November, Pay discussion 1-month later, Stock discussions six months out.
  • ​​Focuses people on Intrinsic (mastery, learning) versus Extrinsic, pay-based.
  • ​​Do you best to hire people who have a proven aptitude for learning, and then do everything we can to help them grow as fast as they can.
  • ​​People learning is essential for your survival.
  • ​​Approach performance like partners at a law firms, partnership
  • ​​It’s like making you a permanent part of the family, great care is taking in making long-term commitment to employee
  • ​​Evaluating Managers (two Tails  (best people, under performing people)
  • ​​Key things to do (p.202)
  • ​​Care about upgrading your organization, and really take action.
  • ​​Gather the data. 
  • ​​Group managers by performance and find out why there are difference
  • ​​Interview the teams
  • ​​Survey teams twice a year and see how managers are doing (p.197)
  • ​​Use Google Forms
  • ​​Have the people who are best at each attribute train everyone else.
  • ​​Help those in Need
  • ​​Put your best people under a microscope
  • ​​study your strongest people and build program to measure and reinforce their best attributes for the entire company, changes the character of your company.
  • ​​Use Surveys and checklist to find the truth and nudge people to improve
  • ​​Set a personal example by sharing and acting on your own feedback.
  • ​​Pay Unfairly (p257)
  • ​​Swallow hard and pay unfairly
  • ​​Have wide variations in pay that reflect the power law distribution of performance
  • ​​Exceptional people are clearly, obviously far better than everyone else
  • ​​If you best person is worth ten of the average people, you must pay unfairly.
  • ​​Otherwise your just giving them a reason to leave/quit.
  • ​​Celebrate accomplishment, not compensation
  • ​​Make it easy to spread the love
  • ​​Implement Peer Bonuses (Kudos with Dollars) for people going over and above.
  • ​​People nominate their peers for a bonus (based on contributions on a team/project)
  • ​​Trust that people will do the right thing and not abuse it.
  • ​​Reward thoughtful failure (p.253)
  • ​​if your goals are ambitious enough, even failure will be a pretty good achievement
  • ​​Reward risk taking even in the face of failure, otherwise people simply won’t take risks
  • ​​What’s important is the learning and response to failure
  • ​​Efficiency/Community/Innovation
  • ​​Make life easier for employees
  • ​​Food, Laundry, ATM, Bike Repair, Car Wash, Exercise, Haircut bus, Mani/Pedis - all helps improve efficiency
  • ​​It’s free - attract vendors community (negotiate) to sell to your employees
  • ​​Invite a speaker to speak
  • ​​Finds ways to say yes (p.274)
  • ​​All programs are about Efficiency, Community, Innovation
  • ​​Most are free, modest, or high (but for high efficiency)
  • ​​Google speaker series —
  • ​​Talks at Google (YouTube, search “Google Talks…”)
  • ​​Take your parents / partners to work day
  • ​​Culture Clubs
  • ​​Women@google
  • ​​Black googler network
  • ​​Filipino googler
  • ​​Social Responsilibity
  • ​​Culture
  • ​​Employee Resource Groups
  • ​​employees help other employees
  • ​​Concierge
  • ​​TGIF
  • ​​Bureaucracy Busters
  • ​​alleviate concern about entitlement via upfront expectation setting
  • ​​Create a shopping mall and let the employees decide
  • ​​The bad stuff in life happens, be there for your people
  • ​​Provide 5-months of maternity leave to US employees
  • ​​new parents get full salary, bonus and stock vesting 
  • ​​$500 bonus to help with life - meals, home delivery, etc.
  • ​​Upon death (beyond life insurance for surviving spouse)
  • ​​Surviving partner receives value of unvested stock
  • ​​Pay 50% of salary for next 10 years
  • ​​If there were children, family gets $1K each month until they turn nineteen or twenty-three of they were full-time students
  • ​​It’s basically free - costs about 1/10 of 1% of payroll
  • ​​Nudge, it works - Health, Wealth and Happiness
  • ​​Recognize the difference between what is and what ought to be
  • ​​Nudge, don’t shove
  • ​​Thoughtful nudging
  • ​​How to improve onboard and  employee ramp-up(p.294)
  • ​​Email to Managers and Newbies
  • ​​Include data/research
  • ​​List/steps of what exactly to do next
  • ​​How to approach work, life, health, wealth
  • ​​Emails, posts, etc.
  • ​​Conduct experiments
  • ​​Run lots of small experiments
  • ​​Small plates
  • ​​Hiding the candy bars in small/opaque containers in lower shelves
  • ​​healthy stuff at eye level
  • ​​Remind folks of how to save at the right time in their 401K
  • ​​Remind folks to be more secure
  • ​​For Screwing Up, you’ll make mistakes
  • ​​Admit your mistake. Be transparent about it.
  • ​​Take counsel from all directions.
  • ​​Fix Whatever broke.
  • ​​Find the moral in the mistake, and teach it.
​​
​​--
​
​Summary of Work Rules:
  1. ​​Give your work meaning.
  1. ​​Trust your people.
  1. ​​Hire only people who are better than you.
  1. ​​Don’t confuse development with managing performance.
  1. ​​Focus on the two tails.
  1. ​​Be frugal and generous
  1. ​​Pay Unfairly.
  1. ​​Nudge.
  1. ​​Manage he rising expectations.
  1. ​​Enjoy! And then go back to No. 1 and start again.
​​
​​
​
​Other Resources
  • ​​Culture IQ (cultureIQ.com)
  • ​​ReWork.withgoogle.com  |  “...Practices, Research and Ideas from Google and Other Companies to put People first"
  • ​​Google Forms (online Surveys using G-Suite)
  • ​​Related Books, mentioned in Book:
  • ​​High Output Management; Andy Grove
  • ​​Thinking Fast and Slow; Daniel Kahneman
  • ​​In the Plex: How Google thinks, Works and shapes our lives; Steven Levy
  • ​​Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness; Richard Thaler
  • ​​The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Ages of American Innovation; Jon Gertner
  • ​​HR and Behavioral Interview Sources
  • ​​Avoid the pitfalls of Unconscious Bias
​​