Why talent always wins!

Curation Friday!

Here are the salient highlights from a recent HBR blog on how Google solves problems. It is a clear case study that covers why you lead and build from your strengths and give the problems you’re not good at to those who are!

People perform best at tasks that interest them. It’s important to remember the context of this incident, which took place in 2002, just as Google was gearing up for its IPO.

There was an urgent need to beef up revenues and the problem with AdWords was a serious impediment to achieving that.  Most CEOs wouldn’t have put up a note in the kitchen, they would have made sure they got their best people on it.

But think about what would have happened next in many company cultures, including some in the Austin region.. A meeting would have been called and, because the “best people” are usually very busy, it would have taken a few weeks to set up. They would have discussed the problem, suggested possible solutions, tested the most promising ones and months later they might have had an answer.

Yet Google’s Larry Page understood that the “best people” would be those that were interested in the problem. As it turned out, while glitch in AdWords was complex problem for most people, it was relatively basic for search engineers. They quickly recognized that implementing an “ad relevance score” and ranking ads that way would be a perfect solution.

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So the “best people” weren’t chosen by Page, they chose themselves (but you can choose yours since you have less than 50,000 employees worldwide) and proved so adept at the task that the AdWords problem was solved over a weekend. Far faster than most CEO’s can organize a meeting among “top people.”

Great leaders provide a sense of mission and purpose. Many managers are fond of saying that they consider talent to be their number one priority, by which they usually mean hiring people who  went to certain schools or had senior positions at key competitors. However, talent is overrated. It is only effective when directed by passion and purpose.

That’s why culture is so important. It’s self-selecting. In enterprises with strong cultures, everybody knows where they want to go and do what they need to get there. In weak cultures, people just do what they’re told. They perform tasks, follow the rules and try not to color outside the lines. There’s no mission to be passionate about.

When he posted that note in the Google kitchen, Larry Page knew the culture at Google would go to work. He didn’t have to spell out what to do because he’d already created a company with a mission and a purpose.  All he had to say was: “These ads suck.”

We align the teams, both marketing and sales, to deliver measurable benefits including brand enhancement, customer experiences, sales growth and industry leadership. And to sustain these core benefits through learning and doing from data and results.

Come back for upcoming posts on the details of vision, purpose, content and media working together for small and middle-market business leaders and their B2B marketing services teams.

We can keep you on the B2B marketing effectiveness and sustainability best practices path. Or get you on it if you are not there yet. We know where you want to go. We know the right buttons to push. We get you there with a strong, measurable ROI. Email us – info@sladegroup.com or call us – 512 799 4676. You’ll be glad you did!

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