Ten golden Google rules

Drawing perhaps a seasonable parallel to the twelve days of Christmas, Newsweek (as syndicated by MSNBC) has a listing of ten rules that Eric Schmidt and Hal Varian say Google lives by. Since I run a company all about clear communication, I was particularly heartened to read the last rule:

Communicate effectively. Every Friday we have an all-hands assembly with announcements, introductions and questions and answers. (Oh, yes, and some food and drink.) This allows management to stay in touch with what our knowledge workers are thinking and vice versa. Google has 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.

But my favorite is not one of the rules, but one of the caveats after the rules:

But almost all engineering projects are team projects; having a smart but inflexible person on a team can be deadly. If we see a recommendation that says "smartest person I've ever known" combined with "I wouldn't ever want to work with them again," we decline to make them an offer.

Despite all the current questioning about Google's future and whether they are the next Microsoft or the next Netscape, I found this simple article quite reassuring. It wasn't full of techno-speak and visions of flying cars -- it was about the simple rules of running a people-based business. If nothing else, we'll know when Google loses their way: it'll be when they decide to toss out the rules.

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