Google's top ten golden rules

The latest issue of Newsweek features a fascinating article co-authored by Google chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt postulates that the productivity of the "knowledge worker" (a term coined by Peter Drucker in 1959) is key to the company's success. Any potential roadblock to productivity is therefore removed. Summarized, the top ten golden rules at Google are:

# Hire by committee. Virtually every person who interviews at Google talks to at least half-a-dozen interviewers... # Cater to their every need... on top of [fringes] are first-class dining facilities, gyms, laundry rooms, massage rooms, haircuts, carwashes, dry cleaning, commuting buses... # Pack them in... The best way to make communication easy is to put team members within a few feet of each other... # Make coordination easy... each Googler e-mails a snippet once a week to his work group describing what he has done in the last week... # Eat your own dog food. Google workers use the company's tools intensively... # Encourage creativity. Google engineers can spend up to 20 percent of their time on a project of their choice... one of our not-so-secret weapons is [an ideas application allowing] everyone to comment on and rate ideas... # Strive to reach consensus... [it] sometimes takes longer, but always produces a more committed team and better decisions # Don't be evil... We foster to create an atmosphere of tolerance and respect, not a company full of yes men. # Data drive decisions... almost every decision is based on quantitative analysis... We have a raft of online "dashboards" for every business we work in that provide up-to-the-minute snapshots of where we are. # Communicate effectively. Every Friday we have an all-hands assembly with announcements... [and] remarkably broad dissemination of information within the organization and remarkably few serious leaks. Contrary to what some might think, we believe it is the first fact that causes the second: a trusted work force is a loyal work force...

It goes without saying. Read the whole thing.