The Sunday, March 13th's Business Section of The New York Times includes an article titled "The Quest to Build a Better Boss" which recounts Google's "Project Oxygen," which intended to find the characteristics of what most employees call the better boss. After reading the article (see link above and below) and summarizing it in the blog, state your opinion. Be ready to discuss the article and your thoughts in class if you want to have the chance of earning five extra credit points.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/business/13hire.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
Sunday, March 13, 2011
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Google is leading by example; they have strategically devised a model that in the long haul, can guarantee better staff performance and professional efficiency. In early 2009, Google Inc. took on Project Oxygen, a mission designed to measure the impact of good managers and help the company improve the quality of those bosses. They wanted to have concrete evidence on the relationship between a manager’s merits, and its effect on the dynamics of the work environment. This management program thus set out to quantify performance-management scores and other data on managers to identify good performers and poor ones. By creating a competency list called the Eight Habits of Highly effective Google Managers, the people “analytics team” from Google specified the requirements of a practical yet operative manager, those that have a “clear vision and strategy for the team”, help “employees with career development”, “are productive and goal-oriented”.
ReplyDeleteSeemingly obvious, this list was not limited to the predictable requisites of executives; it was also ranked in order of importance. What the team found was that what employees valued above all was not their intellect or technical abilities, but the ability to be understanding, personal, and to show an inclination or interest toward an employees’ life and career; its about making a “connection and being accessible.” What matters in this is human interaction, the ability to be professional and still provide a positive work environment for those who work for a common purpose. According to New York Times “Google’s Quest to Build a Better Boss”, managers play a significant role in affecting the behavior and overall performance of their employees. Accordingly, I believe that individual communication and collaboration within the job force is as important as the work itself. When employees have a boss that desires the best for their staff, this can be elemental for the happiness of the individual, the effectiveness of their performance, and the dynamic of the work place. If the opposite occurs and the supervisor is detached and dictatorial, a person may find themselves overworked, underpaid, and dissatisfied in an unnecessarily stressful environment. A good boss understands that their employees have other concerns beside their profession, such as family and friends; they can contribute to the long-term growth of the worker, and is able to promote advanced vocational development. In sum, the quality of a boss is reflective of that of the employee.
K.smith(TR-8:25-9:40)
ReplyDeleteGoogle has come up with a plan to better serve their employees which in the long run will better serve the nation or those who use google as a search engine. Project oxygen is a study that helped google determine what makes a great boss. It worked because they found their worst and best managers by studying all of their techniques and surveying 10,000 people about a great boss. If I could do a study at my job to show my boss how to be great I would. because right now he falls under the wworst category. All companies should participate in Project oxygen it will better alot of companies in the way they work and produce things. It would just help complanies all together.
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ReplyDeleteGoogle asked the question 'What makes a good manager', which lead them to create 'Project Oxygen. Project Oxygen is Google gathering information about managers from everywhere they could find; surveys, interviews, co workers, etc, and then taking all this information and making sense out of it. But the most interesting thing to me is when they put in order from most important to least. It seems to me that to be a good manager you need more common sense than formal education. I am very impressed that Google took the time to do this but if any person in a position where there in charge of other people needs to be told that they should talk with them and be consistent, then something is very wrong with the people that we are hiring to be in charge. But we all know that common sense is not so common, so I am glad that Google has done some research on the subject.
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