New York state began requiring hospitals to post death rates from coronary artery bypass surgeries.  

Over the next four years, deaths from heart surgery fell 41%, Laszlo Bock recounts in his book Work Rules! about his time as Google’s Chief People Operations Officer.

Making performance transparent transformed patient outcomes.  

Transparency also transforms business outcomes.  At Google, the “default setting” is sharing all information with all Googlers.  That’s the starting point.  … continue reading

Think about last five people you interviewed for a job, Laszlo Bock suggests in his terrific book Work Rules!, about his time as Chief of People Operations at Google.

Did you give them similar questions or did each person get different questions?

Did you write up detailed notes so that other interviewers could benefit from your insights?

Did you hold them to exactly the same standard?

Did you cover … continue reading

The first 10 seconds of a job interview predict the outcome.

What?!?

In his book Work Rules!, longtime Google executive Laszlo Bock shares the results from a year 2000 study which showed initial impressions of a candidate based on a handshake and brief introduction correlated strongly to whom was recommended for hire and who wasn’t.

In the study, researchers videotaped real interviews.  “Slices were extracted from each interview, beginning … continue reading

Google’s hiring philosophy begins with this simple but powerful insight: the best talent is not looking for a job.  

The odds of hiring a great performer on an inbound application are low.

This week we’re exploring Google’s impressive hiring and recruiting practices, as outlined in Laszlo Bock’s terrific book Work Rules!

Job boards like Indeed and Monster produce many applicants but almost no hires.  So, in 2008, Google stopped … continue reading

If we want to transform our teams or our organizations, improving our hiring practices is the single best way to do it, writes longtime Google Chief People Operations Officer Laszlo Bock.

It takes will and patience.  But it works.

Google intentionally front loads their investment in people by focusing on hiring right.  Period.  Hard stop.

Yesterday we looked at how Google spends money up front to identify and hire … continue reading

There are two strategies to assemble phenomenal talent in our organizations writes longtime Google Chief People Operations Officer Laszlo Bock:

1:  Find a way to hire the very best talent. Hire 90th percentile performers who will start performing right away.

2: Hire average performers and through training, coaching, hard work, and deep insight into motivation and human nature turn them into 90th percentile performers.  Lazslo refers to this as … continue reading

Early in his tenure at Google, longtime Chief People Officer Laszlo Bock recounts in his book Work Rules!, he wrote an email to his manager complaining about someone else on the team.  

Laszlo’s boss added the person to the email string.

Laszlo quickly reached out directly to the person and together they resolved the issue.

When someone writes a nasty email about someone else, the practice of adding the … continue reading

I was having lunch with a friend.  “So what does it really mean to be best place to work? He asked me.  “Do you have ping pong tables? A beer tap on Friday afternoons?  An exotic health insurance plan?”

It was soon after PCI had been named the #1 midsize company to work for in Texas for the second time by Texas Monthly magazine and the Texas Association for Business … continue reading

When Google went public in August of 2004, Google co-founder Sergey Brin wrote a letter in the prospectus for potential investors:

“Our employees, who have named themselves Googlers, are everything… We have been lucky to recruit many creative, principled and hardworking stars. We hope to recruit many more in the future. We will reward and treat them well. We provide many unusual benefits for our employees, including meals free of charge, … continue reading

In his book, Work Rules! Laszlo Bock, Google’s longtime head of People Operations, lists the decisions managers at Google cannot make unilaterally:

Whom to hire

Whom to fire

How someone’s performance is rated

How much to increase someone’s salary or give a bonus or stock grant

Who wins awards for great management

Whom to promote

When code is of sufficient quality to be incorporated into the Google code base

Final … continue reading