Larry Page’s rules for management are interesting in isolation, and in the context of Google’s evolution:
- Don’t delegate: Do everything you can yourself to make things go faster.
- Don’t get in the way if you’re not adding value. Let the people actually doing the work talk to each other while you go do something else.
- Don’t be a bureaucrat.
- Ideas are more important than age. Just because someone is junior doesn’t mean they don’t deserve respect and cooperation.
- The worst thing you can do is stop someone from doing something by saying, “No. Period.” If you say no, you have to help them find a better way to get it done.
Asked about his approach to running the company, Page once told a Googler his method for solving complex problems was by reducing them to binaries, then simply choosing the best option. Whatever the downside he viewed as collateral damage he could live with.
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Categories: Organization