New standard of adoption in Google

Recently, Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president of Google commented about the standard of adoption as an employee.

The New York Times: How to Get a Job at Google

Google was famous in which some unique methods, such as Fermi estimate, were adopted for evaluation of candidates in a recruitment setting. However, Google accepted that these brain teasers were not trustworthy to distinguish some candidates with high potential from others, as I mentioned before. And what happened?

Bock counted five attributes which he had an eye regarding adoption, instead of GPA.


1. Coding ability
Nothing to say, coding ability is essential to work in Google. Half of the employees are engineers who are required programming skill.

2. Leadership
This is very frequently mentioned matter about this issue. Bock said that leadership is not only to command others, but also to withdraw to let someone else take an important role. In Japan, it is also emphasized recently. For example, Yasuyo Iga published a book "Saiyo-kijun (Standard of adoption)" based on her experience of recruiting in McKinsey. In this book she focused on the need for leadership in every organization.

3. Humility
It is interesting that Google chose this ability. According to Bock, a person who has intellectual humility can easily change his own claim when he noticed he was wrong. It represents his flexibility. I agree with this idea from my own experience. Accepting my error is a difficult thing.

4. Ownership
Ownership should coincide with humility. If either is lacking, cooperation would be lost. Bock described the relationship as Big Ego and Small Ego. Indeed, an excellent leader has both strong ideology and suppleness.


5. Expertise
Google pays little attention to expertise, surprisingly. Bock made an irony: what experts can do with ease would be done by anyone. As a result, the rate of employees without BA is increasing in Google.


The contents Bock mentioned will be applicable to most of the companies. Every employer wants subordinates who have leadership, humility, and ownership. Then, how to evaluate these abilities? How to grow them? As a manager, I am always annoyed by these matters.