How Google’s Project Oxygen is Revitalising Leadership Development
1998 saw the birth of two fledgling organisations that were a world apart. In Mountain View, California, Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched Google. In Sydney, Australia, Virginia Mansell and Peter Stephenson founded the Stephenson Mansell Group.
This year the paths of these two very different companies collide in the celebration of our respective 20-year anniversaries. But it’s not just because we’re birthday buddies that we’re taking a special interest in Google.
The global tech leader is also setting the pace in leadership development.
Take the recent evolution of one of Google’s most insightful research projects, Project Oxygen.
Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter?
The Project Oxygen initiative started with a fundamental question that Google executives had raised in the early 2000s – a question that reflected a mindset of engineers who wanted to design and debug, not be managed or supervise others. The question was: ‘‘Do managers matter?’’ The topic generated a multi-year research project. By 2008 the researchers had identified eight key leadership behaviours that described a successful manager at Google:
1. Is a good coach
2. Empowers the team and does not micromanage
3. Expresses interest/concern for team members’ success and personal well-being
4. Is productive and results-oriented
5. Is a good communicator – listens and shares information
6. Helps with career development
7. Has a clear vision/strategy for the team
8. Has key technical skills that help him/her advise the team
What made the initiative hugely successful was that Google didn’t stop there. They also described the specific actions that they wanted to see for each of these behaviours. Then, they built these actions into their performance management system and into their employee feedback surveys.
The Evolution of Project Oxygen
Earlier this year, as a result of Google’s growing size and complexity, two new leadership behaviours were added by Google to the original list of eight. These new behaviours are: cross-organization collaboration and stronger decision-making practices from leaders. In addition to the two new behaviours, Google also updated behaviours 3 and 6 as a result of their research on psychological safety, unbiasing efforts, and the importance of establishing clear performance expectations. The new list of 10 behaviours are:
1. Is a good coach
2. Empowers team and does not micromanage
3. Creates an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and well-being
4. Is productive and results-oriented
5. Is a good communicator — listens and shares information
6. Supports career development and discusses performance
7. Has a clear vision/strategy for the team
8. Has key technical skills to help advise the team
9. Collaborates across Google
10. Is a strong decision-maker
Taking a Lead from Google
Earlier this year, we tested the relative importance of the two new behaviours – ‘collaboration’ and ‘strong decision-making’— with some of the biggest companies in this region.
We discovered that in the majority of these companies, cross-organisational collaboration is either the most important people priority or one of the top three. Developing ‘strong decision making’ is not far behind.
There are a number of external forces that are making these behaviours mission-critical:
Changing customer expectations, regulation and disruptive technologies mean that companies need to constantly innovate to compete. But innovation is meaningless if a new idea can’t get to market because it’s being hamstrung by the lack of cross-organisational collaboration and poor decision-making.
Additionally, in Australia, the Banking Royal Commission and the financial regulator, APRA, are demanding that financial institutions root out the siloed behaviours and poor decision-making –
practices that have contributed to customers being exposed to fraud and risk.
Google’s research and our own has prompted us to develop consulting and training approaches to help our clients respond to these changing conditions.
For example, we’ve recently been collaborating with Torrens University MBA professor Barry Partridge on the subject of Decision-Making. Dr. Partridge has developed a ground-breaking assessment tool on ‘Decision Making Styles’ which draws on the work of Nobel-prize winning economist Daniel Kahneman. We’ve built this insightful tool into an approach that helps leaders become more confident in their decision-making.
Our view is that the impact and significance of Google research will continue to increase as the company continues to create daylight between itself and a whole range of competitors.
That’s why we’re delighted to be informed by their insights and to leverage them in service to our clients.
About the Author:
Mehul Joshi is a Partner with the Stephenson Mansell Group and Head of the Leadership Practice, a former award-winning broadcast journalist for the BBC, and an experienced executive. As a leadership consultant and executive coach, he has implemented successful interventions for some of the world’s biggest companies in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
