Brief Culture and the Impact of the Ability to Change for Google.
chrsgi1
impetus_for_change.pptxBy: Christopher Gilbert
MGT/426
Instructor: Larry Saidman
November 1st, 2016
Impetus for Change
Who is Google?
Google is a multinational and technological company based in America, and it specializes in Internet-related products and services and includes cloud computing, advertising technologies, software, search and hardware. Google derives most of its profit from AdWords which is an online advertising service which advertises near search results hence closer to the user. Google was founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page while they were taking their Ph.D. studies at Stanford University in California. At the moment, they own approximately 14% of the total share, and they have about 56% control of stockholder voting power especially through super-voting stock. The two incorporated Google Inc. as a private company in 1998 (Scott, 2011).
2
Did you know?
Google was first stored on ten 4GB hard drives in a Lego casing, now showcased by Stanford University. The Lego design would let the founders expand storage capacity easily. The index now has over 100 million GB of data.
Changes that Google Experienced
Google went public over ten years ago. Since then, Google has changed the way world access information. This change has shaped the practice of management in Google Inc. Google has stayed true to its roots and as an engineering-centric organization, it has come out for its early skepticism of its managers’ values and its novel as well, usually the quantitative approaches to the management decisions. Google became famous due to its reliance on the 20% time policy and partly due to its difficult interview questions (Armstrong, 2014).
Google faced a challenge of convincing the employees that the management was valuable. To do so, the company had to establish a brand of management on its own and centered on people analytics, which is a quantitative approach to operations and hiring. The type of change that Google implement is Transitional change. This type of change takes place when an organization recognizes that there is need to implement a new course of action completely. Let us look at this change. After a thorough analysis and consultation, Google announced a significant shift to its executive ranks referring to it as a streamline decision making and creating a clearer responsibility line and accountability at the top of the organization. One of the Google’s founder, Larry Page was made the CEO of Google Inc., and he took over the day-to-day operations of the organization. The co-founder of the organization, Sergey Brin started focusing on the strategic projects, especially, new products (Armstrong, 2014). Eric Schmidt was appointed as the Executive Chairman and focused on the external issues such as partnerships, deals, wider business relationships, customers, technology thought leadership, and government outreach, and all these are exclusively necessary considering Google’s global reach. Internally, Schmidt continued to act as an advisor to Sergey and Larry (Scott, 2011).
Page, Brin, and Schmidt provided their thoughts on the analysts’ movement. All of them praised the work of each other, and they emphasized that this change in management should not lead to any significant change in Google’s overall strategy. Schmidt indicated that the organization's board approved this new structure. Schmidt clearly showed his trust in Larry and Brin. He recognized the way they came up with the idea of forming Google and that they have worked for Google for quite a long time (Lewin, 2012).
4
How was the Change Communicated?
During the development of the Google’s change communication strategy, they told people what they wanted to hear. This change was communicated to all Google employees, shareholders and the whole world. The new management organized a conference in the headquarters of this organization, and this is where the first communication was made (Lewin, 2012).
This communication was all over the media. Major newspapers, blog spots, radio and TV stations also had this information. It is clear that the media communication that the new management embarked on to communicate the change was effective. This is because these media channels are accessible to the whole world. Again, channels such as newspapers and all internet media are useful for future reference since newspaper can be filed and the internet never forgets. The change was very detailed, and they explained the reasons for the change in management. They assured the people that this change would be beneficial to the organization, the employees, and the world. The timing of this communication was also taken care of (Armstrong, 2014).
5
Who was Involved in the Communication?
The newly appointed leaders are the once who were participating in this communication. Schmidt did a great part in this communication. He recognized his total trust in Larry and Brin and recognized their fundamental contributions on his BlogSpot. He also stated that he is sure that the new management will make Google realize its long-term goals. He indicated that they are friends and also co-workers. He said that they planned for this transitional change in management structure for quite sometimes and he is sure that this is the new structure will speed up the process of decision-making and this will be important to the organization (Scott, 2011).
Larry also recognized Eric and Brin saying that both of them had done an outstanding job and that the results of their good work speak for themselves. The CEO acknowledged that Eric is a tremendous leader and they have assisted each other through ups and downs facing this organization. He finalized by saying that Eric efforts and advice are invaluable to him and the company as he starts the new role as the Google’s CEO. Brin also stated that Larry is willing and ready to lead the organization. He acknowledged him for the far they had moved from when they came with the idea to form this company. He also acknowledged Eric for being very supportive of them and he had provided good advice. The board of directors also took part in this communication since the change and how it will be impacted determined by the board of directors. The board also portrayed their support and trust for the newly appointed leadership (Mayle, 2015).
6
Did you know?
Since the founders weren’t looking to start their own business, they tried to sell their search engine system. Yahoo originally said no, but in 2002 offered to buy Google for $3 billion. Google said no, and it’s now valued at $400 billion.
Conclusion
Changes management models are very important because they simplify and describe a process, so we are in a position to understand and use these principles. In this change, the change model used here is Bridge’s Transition model. The idea behind the model is to provide a solid understanding of exactly what is happening when an organizational change occurs. The model also differentiates between transition and change. The model states that change is situational and it takes place without individuals transitioning. The transition is psychological, and it occurs in three phases where individuals accept details of new situation and changes that accompanies it. The three phases are new beginning phase, neutral zone phase and ending phase (Lewin, 2012).
8
References:
Armstrong, N. (2014). The impetus for a change. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Lewin, D. (2012). Change management. Los Angeles: SAGE publications.
Mayle, D. (2015). Google case study. New York: Springer.
Scott, V. A. (2011). Google. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.
Kim, L. "Did You Know These 26 Facts About Google?" Small Business Trends. N.p., 22 Apr. 2015. Web. 01 Nov. 2016.
