Think of your work as a calling, with a mission that matters.Bock says that the lesson isn’t, “Don’t hire smart people.” Instead, it’s, “Don’t hire exclusively for smarts.” The lesson here is that instead of just buying the best players and expecting them to work well together, a better strategy is to buy the best team players and to focus on training them. For Bock, the three defining aspects of Google’s culture are its mission, its transparency, and its voice.īock suggests imagining that you’ve suddenly won the largest lottery jackpot in US history ($656 million) and that you’ve decided to use the money to assemble a baseball team.

For example, they celebrate April Fool’s Day every year and update their logo to celebrate historical figures. You might be worried at this point that Bock is about to slip into management speak, but the title of this chapter is tongue-in-cheek and a nod to how Google prides itself on having a “fun” culture which they reflect throughout the company. Montessori schools adopt a different approach to education and focus on allowing children to grow through hands-on learning and collaborative play, an approach that Google itself usually follows.

Google’s origins are already the stuff of legends, but Bock suggests that much of Google’s culture comes from the Montessori schools that founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were educated at. Not every company will be able to duplicate perks like free meals, but everyone can duplicate what makes Google great.”īock begins his tale by talking about founding stories. “The secrets of Google’s people success can be replicated in organizations large and small,” Bock explains. Work Rules! Insights from Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead Work Rules!, his first book, was named a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. It’s no coincidence that under Bock’s leadership, Google was repeatedly named the Best Company to Work for. It’s his experiences at Google that he talks about here, distilling the company’s philosophy towards people management into 400 pages or so of solid gold. (check out the latest price on Amazon HERE ) Currently the co-founder and CEO of Humu, he rose to prominence at General Electric, McKinsey & Company and eventually as the Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google. Born in communist Romania in 1972, Bock is a real-life example of the American dream. If you’ve never heard of Laszlo Bock, you’ve been missing out.

Work rules bock