Around the Net
Experts Assess Google's Management
- The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, August 15, 2007 10:46 AM
The Wall Street Journal asks two experts -- Professor Thomas Eisenmann, a Harvard Business School Associate, and Gary Hamel, a management consultant -- to assess one of the great Google debates:
"Is Google rewriting the rules of good management? Or is it just enjoying the rewards of a single well-timed breakthrough?"
Hamel has published a book on this subject, while Eisenmann
debates the issue on a regular basis in class. For Hamel, Google's innovations go beyond its ingenuous search algorithm; he says its general management principle of decentralized, self-managing teams
fosters the kind of innovation that's helped raise Google's market capitalization to an astounding $160 billion. Cushy working environments replete with perks help keep employees happy. In essence, he
says that Google "is committed to building a company that can evolve as fast as the Web."
Eisenmann, on the other hand, admires how far the search king has come, but says its demise is
imminent, unless it revamps its hodgepodge management style. He says Google's biggest problem is that its opportunities exist in huge markets like Web-based software and services, but conquering those
markets requires old-fashioned hierarchical leadership. Its freewheeling culture produces beta projects, not refined, revenue-generating mass-market products.
