This document is a piece of work dated 2009 outlining an analysis of the strategic activity within a major international organisation, more specifically Google. It includes an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages associated with using chaos integration perspectives.
The 11 Corporate Lessons From Movie Rocket Singh By Ashraf ChaudhryAshraf Chaudhry
The Movie Rocket Singh carries great lessons on Sales, Marketing and Team Building
Ashraf Chaudhry
Sales & Marketing Trainer
http://www.ashrafchaudhry.com
The 11 Corporate Lessons From Movie Rocket Singh By Ashraf ChaudhryAshraf Chaudhry
The Movie Rocket Singh carries great lessons on Sales, Marketing and Team Building
Ashraf Chaudhry
Sales & Marketing Trainer
http://www.ashrafchaudhry.com
Important Lessons Learnt From Rocket SinghJaspal Singh
Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year is a 2009 Indian Hindi-language comedy-drama
I tried to capture some of the lessons which I really found interesting...A very nice movie with a very clear message... Take a risk in life and grow.
As you build your startup team, it’s important to create a vision and develop a company culture. A strong culture will keep your employees engaged and excited to do their best to support the company's goals. What is culture and how do you define it? How can you inspire culture as a leader? Join us to hear from Shawn Mandel, Vice-President, Digital, TELUS, who used startup principles to lead a complete redesign of telus.com and reengineered the team’s culture to empower every member to experiment and make decisions fostering autonomy and ongoing innovation.
Chanakya Speaks - The Seven Pillars of Business Successchanakyaspeaks
"Chanakya Speaks - The Seven Pillars for Business Success" is the story about the quest of a young business executive trying to learn from Chanakya's Teachings.
For More info:
http://chanakyaspeaks.in
Read attachedpages about 3-M and their approach to innovationRes.docxmakdul
Read attachedpages about 3-M and their approach to innovation
Research one of 3M’s innovations.
Write a full two page paper in which you respond to the following questions:
1. How did the creative thinking process work in the development of this product? Describe what took place in each of the four steps.
2. Analyze what type of innovation this was—invention, extension, duplication, or synthesis. What characteristics of the innovation have led you to this conclusion?
3. Explain which of the sources of innovative ideas discussed in this week’s reading help account for this product’s success and why?
Include a minimum of two sources
The Entrepreneurial Mind-Set in Organizations: Corporate Entrepreneurship
Thus, 3M’s philosophy was born. Innovation is a numbers game: The more ideas, the better the chances for a successful innovation. In other words, to master innovation, companies must have a tolerance for failure. This philosophy has paid off for 3M. Antistatic videotape, trans- lucent dental braces, synthetic ligaments for knee surgery, heavy-duty reflective sheeting for construction signs, and, of course, Post-it notes are just some of the great innovations devel- oped by the organization. Overall, the company has a catalog of 60,000 products.40
Today, 3M follows a set of innovative rules that encourages employees to foster ideas. The key rules include the following:
•
Don’t kill a project. If an idea can’t find a home in one of 3M’s divisions, a staffer can devote 15 percent of his or her time to prove it is workable. For those who need seed money, as many as 90 Genesis grants of $50,000 are awarded each year.
• Tolerate failure. Encouraging plenty of experimentation and risk taking allows more chances for a new product hit. The goal: Divisions must derive 25 percent of sales from products introduced in the past five years. The target may be boosted to 30 percent in some cases.
• Keep divisions small. Division managers must know each staffer’s first name. When a division gets too big, perhaps reaching $250 million to $300 million in sales, it is split up.
• Motivate the champions. When a 3M employee has a product idea, he or she recruits an action team to develop it. Salaries and promotions are tied into the product’s progress. The champion has a chance to someday run his or her own product group or division.
• Stay close to the customer. Researchers, marketers, and managers visit with customers and routinely invite them to help brainstorm product ideas.
•
Share the wealth. Technology, wherever it is developed, belongs to everyone.41 3-4c structuring the Work environment
Structuring the Work environment
When establishing the drive to innovate in today’s corporations, one of the most critical steps is to invest heavily in an innovative environment. A top-level manager’s job is to create a work environment that is highly conducive to innovation and entrepreneurial behaviors. Within such an environment, each employee has the opport ...
Important Lessons Learnt From Rocket SinghJaspal Singh
Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year is a 2009 Indian Hindi-language comedy-drama
I tried to capture some of the lessons which I really found interesting...A very nice movie with a very clear message... Take a risk in life and grow.
As you build your startup team, it’s important to create a vision and develop a company culture. A strong culture will keep your employees engaged and excited to do their best to support the company's goals. What is culture and how do you define it? How can you inspire culture as a leader? Join us to hear from Shawn Mandel, Vice-President, Digital, TELUS, who used startup principles to lead a complete redesign of telus.com and reengineered the team’s culture to empower every member to experiment and make decisions fostering autonomy and ongoing innovation.
Chanakya Speaks - The Seven Pillars of Business Successchanakyaspeaks
"Chanakya Speaks - The Seven Pillars for Business Success" is the story about the quest of a young business executive trying to learn from Chanakya's Teachings.
For More info:
http://chanakyaspeaks.in
Read attachedpages about 3-M and their approach to innovationRes.docxmakdul
Read attachedpages about 3-M and their approach to innovation
Research one of 3M’s innovations.
Write a full two page paper in which you respond to the following questions:
1. How did the creative thinking process work in the development of this product? Describe what took place in each of the four steps.
2. Analyze what type of innovation this was—invention, extension, duplication, or synthesis. What characteristics of the innovation have led you to this conclusion?
3. Explain which of the sources of innovative ideas discussed in this week’s reading help account for this product’s success and why?
Include a minimum of two sources
The Entrepreneurial Mind-Set in Organizations: Corporate Entrepreneurship
Thus, 3M’s philosophy was born. Innovation is a numbers game: The more ideas, the better the chances for a successful innovation. In other words, to master innovation, companies must have a tolerance for failure. This philosophy has paid off for 3M. Antistatic videotape, trans- lucent dental braces, synthetic ligaments for knee surgery, heavy-duty reflective sheeting for construction signs, and, of course, Post-it notes are just some of the great innovations devel- oped by the organization. Overall, the company has a catalog of 60,000 products.40
Today, 3M follows a set of innovative rules that encourages employees to foster ideas. The key rules include the following:
•
Don’t kill a project. If an idea can’t find a home in one of 3M’s divisions, a staffer can devote 15 percent of his or her time to prove it is workable. For those who need seed money, as many as 90 Genesis grants of $50,000 are awarded each year.
• Tolerate failure. Encouraging plenty of experimentation and risk taking allows more chances for a new product hit. The goal: Divisions must derive 25 percent of sales from products introduced in the past five years. The target may be boosted to 30 percent in some cases.
• Keep divisions small. Division managers must know each staffer’s first name. When a division gets too big, perhaps reaching $250 million to $300 million in sales, it is split up.
• Motivate the champions. When a 3M employee has a product idea, he or she recruits an action team to develop it. Salaries and promotions are tied into the product’s progress. The champion has a chance to someday run his or her own product group or division.
• Stay close to the customer. Researchers, marketers, and managers visit with customers and routinely invite them to help brainstorm product ideas.
•
Share the wealth. Technology, wherever it is developed, belongs to everyone.41 3-4c structuring the Work environment
Structuring the Work environment
When establishing the drive to innovate in today’s corporations, one of the most critical steps is to invest heavily in an innovative environment. A top-level manager’s job is to create a work environment that is highly conducive to innovation and entrepreneurial behaviors. Within such an environment, each employee has the opport ...
Innomantra Viewpoint - Getting Bold innovation Right v1.0 Innomantra
Getting ‘BOLD INNOVATION’ Right
By Neelima Joseph & Lokesh Venkataswamy
The element ‘SUPPORT’ finds relevance in the innovation management system. To manage innovation effectively, the organization should jump in and facilitate the required resources for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continual improvement of the innovation management system. The resources come in different forms such as Time, Knowledge, Financial resources, Infrastructure, and Human resources. For effective implementation of the standard, organizations are responsible for determining, providing, and managing the right people. Organizations must identify and develop teams with diverse backgrounds, to enhance cross-pollination and leverage the collective competence of the organization (ISO 56002:2019).
The element 'SUPPORT' encompasses the following sub-clauses, which are the different ways in which support could be extended:
Individual Project I-3
1. Title
Technology Innovation Project
2. Introduction
Background of the Corporation
Largo Corporation is a major multinational conglomerate corporation which specializes in a wide array of products and services. These products and services include healthcare, finance, retail, government services, and many more. The annual revenue is about $750 million and it has about 1,000 employees. The parent company is located in Largo, Maryland and its subsidiaries are headquartered throughout the United States.
The mission of the corporation is to bring the best products and services to people and businesses throughout the world so they can then realize their full potential.
The corporate vision guides every aspect of their business to achieve sustainable, quality growth:
Productivity: Be a highly effective, lean and fast-moving organization.
People: Be a great place to work where people are inspired to achieve their maximum potential.
Partners: Nurture a winning network of customers and suppliers, together we create mutual, enduring value.
Responsible: Be a responsible citizen that makes a difference through ethical behavior.
Revenue: Maximize long-term return while being mindful of our overall responsibilities.
The company’s culture is reflected in their corporate values:
Leadership: Courage to shape a better future.
Collaboration: Leverage collective intelligence.
Accountability: Own up to your responsibility.
Passion: Committed to excellence.
Diversity: Provide new perspectives into our business.
Quality: We will want quality as part of our brand.
The corporation consists of the parent company and the following subsidiaries:
Healthcare – Suburban Independent Clinic, Inc. (medical services)
Finance – Largo Capital (financial services)
Retail – Rustic Americana (arts and crafts), Super-Mart (office products)
Government Services – Government Security Consultants (information security)
Automotive – New Breed (electric cars)
Systems Integration –
Solution
s Delivery, Inc. (communications)
Media Design – Largo Media (website and app design)
The organization is headed by CEO Tara Johnson who completed her Master’s degree at UMUC and eager to make worthwhile improvements to the corporation. She rose through the ranks of Largo Corporation starting with systems integration, then retail and her last position before becoming CEO was in finance.
The corporation is in a highly competitive environment so the CEO wants savvy employees at many levels to make wise judgments and take an aggressive approach and deliver results towards improving the bottom line yet maintaining corporate social responsibility.
Corporate Issues
Ms. Johnson is very concerned about the outlook of her company. Revenues recently declined and she felt that the organization needed a transformation for the company to do well over the long term. In thumbing through some readings she was inspired when she uncovered the following:
We live in a business world acceler.
What is Innovation Management And Why Is It Important - MIT ID InnovationPankaj Deshpande
Innovation Management is one of the most effective digital innovation strategies. MIT ID Innovation offer the best Innovation Management Courses.
For more details, visit : https://mitidinnovation.com/recreation/what-is-innovation-management-and-why-is-it-important/
This is a presentation on the best practices of our dream company and we have to apply these best practices to solve the problems which occur in other companies.
Business module innovation management and forecastingiWant tutor
This a two-part report carrying out an analysis of innovation development in Google Inc USA, and the evaluation of the forecasting method at Ford. In the innovation development and analysis, the creativity and innovation of the firm is analyzed along with the implications introduced by means of organization structure, culture, and change management. As with any impediments to processes, the innovation management of company would also have faced some challenges and these challenges are then discussed in context.
How any organisation can drive culture and design systems to pursue practical...Toby Farren
This whitepaper will provide an insight into the different elements of modern innovation fostering,
including the various factors determining the capability of organisations to innovate internally;
the differences between frontend and backend innovation; and a focus on the relatively new
‘open’ innovation methods (including the advantages of utilizing sandboxes in the frontend
innovation process as well as collaborating with external bodies).
Driving Repeatable Business Innovation: The Vision to Action LifecycleMindjet
The current generation of Social Business tools has missed
a huge opportunity to impact business innovation and
results. By focusing on functionality that emphasizes
communications, they’ve omitted the required structure
and process needed to meaningfully affect the business.
In this presentation, we take you through the Vision to Action Lifecycle, and explain why a holistic approach to innovation can create repeatable, tangible results for your business.
Discussion 1Post 1Top of FormToday, data quality and privac.docxcuddietheresa
Discussion 1
Post 1:
Top of Form
Today, data quality and privacy are important components in any organization around the world. Thus , project managers are required to come up with proper ways of ensuring better data quality and privacy to ensure there is availability and improve customer service that will go to the heart of enabling the organization have a proper and functioning system at the end of the day. The managers need to adopt the following recommendations for the business as follows. The first recommendation is the need to have a high level of accuracy and measurement when it comes to degree where the data values are obtained. Data accuracy is very important in the business as wrong values will produce wrong output and this will affect the quality of decision making process at the end of the day (Chiregi & Navimipour, 2016) Another important mechanism is to ensure that all the data is complete and contains all the required attributes that will ensure there is proper data that will used in the decision making process. Also, there is need for the data to be consistency and this means that all the attributes should be uniform and all the instances and references from the set of data (Pearson & Wegener,2013). Thus, all the data collected need to be accurate and all values be consistent form the source. Finally, there is need to have a unique demonstration of the records that will need to be represented within the data sets and this will remove the element of duplicates at the end of the day.
References
Chiregi, M., & Navimipour, N. J. (2016). A new method for trust and reputation evaluation in the cloud environments using the recommendations of opinion leaders' entities and removing the effect of troll entities. Computers in Human Behavior, 60, 280-292.
Pearson, T., & Wegener, R. (2013). Big data: the organizational challenge. Bain Co.
Response1:
Post 2:
Top of Form
Recommendations that IT managers group collectively provide
In the modern workplace, Information Technology Managers (IT Managers) plays a vital role. IT managers helps to implement and administrate technology within their organization. He gives proper direction to the organization, the communications system and the structure. He ensures that the long-term objectives are translated into concrete plans of actions and understood and supported by people working at various levels. Other responsibility of the manager is a system of communications which enables managers throughout the organization to be aware, and the manager responsible for the systems stay informed of the changes that are taking place (How do Managers (Leaders) Contribute to an Organizations?, 2012). Below are some recommendations that an IT Managers provide:
Planning and Assessments: The organization need to identify the strengths, weaknesses and outside threats to work against its success and name the problem or issue that they are concerned about. It should utilize their current network to identify ...
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 3DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 3. In this session, we will cover desktop automation along with UI automation.
Topics covered:
UI automation Introduction,
UI automation Sample
Desktop automation flow
Pradeep Chinnala, Senior Consultant Automation Developer @WonderBotz and UiPath MVP
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI support
Chaos Integration Perspectives within Google
1. How has Google used chaos integrating
perspectives and what are the benefits
and disadvantages of such perspectives?
Richmond, The American International University in
London
MGT 403 Competition & Strategy
Dr. Robert M. Mulligan
Tagaris Cheikh Ali, M 036 307
09/12/09
Word Count: 2865
A
2. 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 3
Chaos Integrating Perspectives 4
Google’s Chaos Integrating Perspective 6
Advantages vs. Disadvantages 13
Conclusion 13
References 15
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307
3. 3
Introduction
Google’s Marissa Mayer, keynoting at Harvard's Cyber|West conference, unveiled
the four strategies driving Google development; more content, easier computing,
personalization and better search. Apparently, what Google believes in is that despite
their chaotic behavior, their development efforts will comply with at least one of those
four themes, and achieve success. Chaotic it may seem, but behind it all is the simple
belief that, ‘What's good for the web is good for Google.’
Professor Ralph Stacey, the principal exponent of the development of strategies
from chaotic systems, views companies as dynamic feedback systems, because of which,
it is hard for managers to plan or envision the long-term future of innovative
organisations, such as Google, involved in rapidly changing and chaotic environments.
Therefore, they have to create and discover a future using their ability to learn together in
groups and interact politically in a spontaneous self-organising manner. Professor Stacey
states that where a provocative, but positive atmosphere conducive to complex learning
exists in a company, that company will succeed due to its constant new strategic
development plans. Where such an atmosphere is absent, the atmosphere is not conducive
for such innovations, which lead to static failure.
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307
4. 4
Chaos Integrating Perspectives
Chaos is a fundamental property of non-linear feedback systems, which include
organisations run by human beings. Non-linear systems are those that use amplifying
(positive) feedback in some way. Thus, when a new strategy or product is developed and
introduced in the market, the success or failure of it is the dynamic feedback. Chaos in
the scientific sense is “an irregular pattern of behaviour generated by well-defined non-
linear feedback rules commonly found in nature and human society.” When systems
driven by such rules operate away from equilibrium they react to changes in their
environments and amplify them into self-reinforcing virtuous and vicious circles that
alter the behaviour of the system.”
What normally happens in the business world is that companies compete with
each other for market supremacy and share. They strive to bring to the market products
and services which alleviate human efforts and bring positive returns. Happy customers
mean more business and more business means, success. In a normal R&D framework,
researchers, engineers and managers create and shape the requirements of customers
using the positive feedback, and the negative feedback controls, to meet cost and quality
targets. Thus, businesses are clearly characterised by feedback processes that sway
between the negative and positive, or the amplifying and damping processes. Thus, these
feedbacks produce chaos, but, they do not illustrate what the long-term future would be.
The future remains illusionary and this is what Google chaos integrating perspective
looks to achieve through their ‘groupism’ effort.
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307
5. 5
There are eight steps to create order out of chaos:
1. Develop new perspectives on the meaning of control (promotion of groups)
2. Design the use of power (allowing group dynamics which are conducive to
learning and problem solving)
3. Encourage self-organising groups (autonomy in setting their own challengers,
goals and objectives)
4. Provoke multiple cultures (rotation of people between functions and business
units to create cultural diversity)
5. Present ambiguous challenges instead of clear long-term objectives or visions
6. Expose the business to challenging situations
7. Devote explicit attention to improving group learning skills
8. Create resource slack (favourable attitude and support from managers lead to
individual initiative and intuition)
According to Bechtold (1997), a company’s strategic planning process must be
continuous and also involve all the members of that organisation as a part of its corporate
culture. The process must be real-time and not annualised. The strategic process will:
• Accept uncertainty
• Have the ability to address emergent issues
• Recognise that environmental change can mean a new direction
• The process must provide a means to handle change:
1. All members come together and learn from each other.
2. Fluid planning
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307
6. 6
3. Use of groups
4. Involvement
Google’s Chaos Integrating Perspective
What is worth studying about Google’s chaos integrating perspective is its
mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible. This is
far-thinking, but then, that’s what chaos integration is all about. Google doesn’t have the
traditional hierarchical management system found in other companies. With minimal
hierarchy but extensive formal and informal communication networks, just about every
employee in the company is individual entrepreneurs. Half the staffs are product
development engineers who work in small autonomous teams. Product and service
development is a team-based approach, and every team within the company work to
develop the next big breakthrough solution on the internet. They operate on a resource
allocation policy based upon the formula 70-20-10, where, 70 percent of the development
resources is allotted for enhancement of the core business products, 20 percent is allotted
to services which significantly extend these core products, and 10 percent to other
ventures. Every development engineer is encouraged to spend up to 20 percent of their
time on their own initiatives to develop non-core products. As Google targets about a
dozen or more new services or significant product enhancements every quarter, every
development engineer is consulted, and made sure are available when decisions are made.
Each quarter project teams are considered for ‘Founders Awards’. These have a budget of
millions of dollars of Google stock (shares) and go to those employees who have made
remarkable contributions to the company’s performance. No employee has to leave the
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307
7. 7
company to pursue their own projects, as Google offers them the time, support and
rewards to pursue it at work itself. Employees are encouraged to email ideas for new
products or services, including the way they are developed, to a company-wide
suggestion box. This is very similar to the initiative taken by Infosys of India in their
K2mail. Every employee has the privilege to drop their suggestions or ideas and also read
and respond to these suggestions and rate them.
The culture of the company is largely technocratic with individual engineers
succeeding based upon the quality of their ideas and technological acumen. The company
recognizes the importance of their engineers as the most important asset and encourages
them to develop rather than waste away. Breakthroughs come from questioning
assumptions and challenging paradigms, and the company corporate credo challenges
every employee to put their customer before self.
Google deliberately operate an edge-of-chaos style. The company recognises that
its internal variety and creativity must evolve at the same speed as their environment,
internet speed. It is estimated that only about 20 per cent of projects succeed which is a
low success rate but the company’s rationale is that more number of small experiments
will improve the odds of getting to the next new solution quicker and cheaper than the
more traditional rival company approach.
It is made up of highly intelligent and very knowledgeable engineers. Their fear
that one inferior engineer could drag threaten the enormous talent of other engineers
raises their selection criteria. New applicants are subjected to many interviews, often over
a period of weeks that challenge their problem-solving skills with MENSA-level tests
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307
8. 8
“Those who avoid change and taking chances face the certainty of stagnation and
collapse simply because innovation depends significantly on chance.” Michael Porter, an
exponent of this theory says that “those companies which expose themselves to the most
demanding situations and customers are the ones that are likely to build sustainable
competitive advantage.” This theory holds good for Google as well, as this company has,
over the years, redefined what global competitive advantage means.
Google is a very successful and innovative internet based company (Iyer &
Davenport, 2008). According to the Harvard Business Review, Google ‘balances an
admittedly chaotic ideation process with a set of rigorous, data-driven methods for
evaluating ideas’ (Iyer & Davenport, 2008). Their processes are such that one would be
inclined to accept Pascale’s principles embedded in it. “Google has the strategy of letting
‘a thousand flowers bloom at the same time” said Harvard business Review following
their innovative and strategic practices which encourage all employees to participate in it
(Iyer & Davenport, 2008). As a principle, Google sets out to experiment at every possible
opportunity and while many of them fail, a percentage of it succeeds. This success rate
though negligible, is enough to keep the company ahead of its competitors. In a statement
made to the Economist by Shona Brown, just before becoming senior vice president at
Google, he said, “We kind of like the chaos. Creativity comes out of people bumping into
each other and not knowing where to go” (Iyer & Davenport, 2008). The third principle
of living systems self-organising under pressure is satisfied, as the future of Google and
its stakeholders is uncertain and which puts pressure on it to create innovative products
and services that keep the company ahead of its competitors and at the same time remain
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307
9. 9
highly competitive. The company through its constant innovativeness and trial-and-error
methods keeps the stakeholders on their toes and challenges the impact it will have on the
unforeseen future (Pascale, 2002). To sum up the feeling within the company, Shona
Brown adds, “We at Google, encourage risk-taking and look at as the stepping stone to
success. I’m so glad that we make mistakes in the run-up to success, because we want to
be art of a company which is doing too much, too quickly, and not being too cautious and
doing too little. If we don’t have any of these mistakes, we’re just not taking enough risk”
he ended (Iyer & Davenport, 2008).
Though there are many on-the-job methods to develop one’s skills, the
management at Google wishes to encourage innovation, creativity and a holistic
organisational perspective. The best production practices worldwide have a common
ideology, an ideology based on the investigation in reduction of cycle time, reduction of
variability, increase in transparency, and continuous improvement in the production
process. The rationale underlying these principles is uniformity, wherein production is an
amalgamation of hibernation, transportation, inspection, and transformation. According to
this concept, transformation activities are the only ones that actually add value. Hence, all
other activities should be reduced or eliminated from the assembly-line to increase the
efficiency of transformation activities (Berawi M. A, and Woodhead R. M, 2005)1
The modern business world is characterised by changing global markets and
technological advances. In order to compete is such a highly competitive environment,
organisational structures and culture has to change to bring about flexibility.
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307
1 Human Factors in Ergonomics & Manufacturing
10. 10
Thus, knowledge becomes an imperative tool in value creation. Importance is placed in
developing the organisational knowledge base either by learning from others in the
organisation, or through individual innovations, as seen in Google. Both these methods
help the organisation acquire the technological edge to excel in their respective fields
(Wissensmanager, n.d).
Decision-making is an option to choose among various actions that provide
positive results. They stressed that the need to decide hanged on the necessity to opt
whether to decide on initiating an action or not, and that when a decision was taken, it
was made in concurrence of the knowledge that it would be a combination of competing
values and strategic goals.
Performance is the cornerstone to success and productivity. Performance comes
about through the wholehearted and sincere effort of employees of an organisation. This
is possible only if the employees are kept happy and cared for. Strategies that favour
employee retention, elicit competitive bonus schemes, and creates healthy work
environment are pre-requisites for employee performance, culminating in higher
production.
A company’s best asset is its people, so there is a good reason why the company
needs to do what is right for them. A point of contention to performance and productivity
is the way one works; the ability to work remotely, where enterprise convergence gains
momentum. Organisations and structures have become more fluid. Mobility not just of
the people involved, but their virtual working environment has become synonymous for
productivity. For business bosses and their employees, a converged environment makes
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307
11. 11
work location and distance irrelevant. The impetus to work for the benefit of the
organisation must come from within the individuals concerned. Just as a student finds his/
her studies important and strive for excellence, employees must find the inclination to
work from within their heart. This can come about with the sustained effort of the
management to bring changes that enliven the workplace (Randery, 2006).
Fostering a healthy workplace can substantially increase productivity and decrease
absenteeism says Dr.Les Mathers, of Carle Clinic. A little care by the employer to his/her
employees can create a work environment that encourages employees to stay healthy,
thereby keeping the company running smoothly. Health has a direct bearing on the way
an employee works. Despite his or her best effort to work hard, an employee who suffers
from an unhealthy lifestyle may find difficulty in concentrating, can make unintentional
mistakes that can harm the organisation, feel stressed and exhausted and skip work
periodically (Mathers, 2006).
A Brazilian company, Semco, has a large proportion of blue collar workers. The
company gives its workers an unusually large degree of freedom and responsibility,
which includes, planning their production, setting their own work hours, and selecting
sites and designs for the factories they work in. The results were phenomenal. The results
showed very high profits; the workers developed and implemented their own ideas in
new products or improving existing processes, and annual employee turnover hovered
around 1%. What more could the management have asked for from their workers?
(Kjerulf, 2007) This went to show that blue collar workers who were treated on par didn’t
need the motivation to be happy at their workplace, they were more than happy to
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307
12. 12
innovate and do what they thought was best for them and the company, which
subsequently benefited from it.
“People are business’s most important asset” wrote Dave Gartenberg, in
‘Destination Workplace. This is a universally accepted fact among business leaders. It is
people who innovate, it is the same employees who develop business relationships, it is
also the same employees who market, service and find new ways to improve efficiency
and productivity. In a world where intangible constitute more than three-quarters of the
total market value, where the talent pool is shrinking, and the attitudes to work and the
work/life balance changes, any company with an inferior workforce is a misfit and will
be consumed by competition.
There are three points which can be considered in exploring an individual's thoughts,
actions, and conceptualisation at workplace:
• An individual lives by his/her emotions, motivations, and perceptions of the work
environment that permeate their behaviour at work
• These feelings affect their day-to-day performance
• These feelings are paramount to their performance at work
Individuals found in a happy and entertaining atmosphere tend to be more creative
and involved in their work than in places where they face admonishment and pressure.
Research claims that individuals who ‘feel good’ are prone to a cognitive process that
instigates a more flexible, fluent, and original thinking. This can have a positive influence
on other individuals around them. Individual behavior impacts the environment, but what
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307
13. 13
about workplace relationships and its effect on self, co-workers and the work
environment?
When effective laws, rules and regulations, financial incentives or penalties, and
social pressure leave little room for personal values; it has an un-telling influence on an
individual’s behavior. And because a variety of factors influence an individual’s behavior,
creative approaches involving multiple influences on behavior offer the greatest potential
for change (Stern P.C, 2005).
Advantages vs. Disadvantages
The problem with such a practice is that not too many opportunities will arise for
those who are of lesser talent or qualification. The level of professionalism will no doubt
be very good and beneficial for the company, and it will help the company maintain its
place through its competitiveness and innovativeness.
Conclusion
A highly motivated team can raise its performance to enhance production levels
significantly to the point that many employees may well go beyond their leaders’
expectations, individual accountability, financial results and short-term market objectives.
The most noticeable difference between a high-performance workforce and an average
workforce is their energetic and emotional commitment. Make no mistake, all these
qualities are inhibited in every individual on earth, but it’s the way companies implement
these that matters. If this energy is not properly channelised, it could lead to confusion,
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307
14. 14
causing undue damage to the organisation. This is Google’s chaos integrity perspective,
and something which the company is proud to flout.
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307
15. 15
References
Berawi M. A, and Woodhead R. M, (2005), Application of knowledge management in
production management: Research Articles, Human Factors in Ergonomics &
Manufacturing, Volume 15 , Issue 3, John Wiley and Sons Ltd, UK ISSN:1090-8471
Kjerulf, A, (2007), Ask the CHO: Motivation for Production Workers?
http://www.positivesharing.com/2007/01/ask-the-cho-motivation-for-production-workers/
Mathers, L. Dr., (2007), Pantagraph.com, Occupational Medicine: Making Wellness a
Priority, www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/01/16/money/b2b/
doc4586c86ad6bda868290791.txt
Randery, T, (2006), Convergence, A New Way of Working, Management Today, Journal.
RMM, Adapted from Bechtold, B.L, (1997), Chaos Theory as a Model Strategy
development, Empowerment in organisations, Vol. 5, No 4, 193-201
Stern, Paul C, (2005), Understanding Individuals’ Environmentally Significant Behavior,
ELR News and Analysis, www7.nationalacademies.org/dbasse/Environmental%20Law
%20Review%20PDF.pdf 2005
tutor2u, Motivating Employees-non financial rewards, www.tutor2u.net/business/gcse/
people_motivation_non_financial_rewards.htm
Wissensmanager, An Illustrated Guide to Knowledge Management, http://www.wm-
forum.org/files/Handbuch/An_Illustrated_Guide_to_Knowledge_Management.pdf
Tagaris Cheikh Ali M 036 307