Great Googlely Moogely

By Jeff Lesher

Recently, I wrote about how the folks at Google were working to develop the best employees – not mention the most “Googley” ones – by installing high-tech toilets in their corporate campus buildings. I admire Google for their products, success, and spirit, which is why I note respectfully that they seem to be walking down the same path as so many organizations that experience “overnight success” and the stardom and rapid growth that follows. I’ve worked with a number of these companies before or after the inevitable “fall” that came from too many months staring into the mirror like the evil Queen in Snow White. “Tell me what I want to hear, not what I need to know,” they implored the mirror. That terrible and terribly wrong expression, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” is the mantra of these companies who usually realize too late that investing in organizational maintenance along the way could have enabled them to avoid being broken at all. But too many find themselves on Pit Road at the race for sustainable success while their competition zooms ahead.

The current Google mindset is suggested by numerous articles extolling their every virtue and concluding that their recipe for success, indeed, is unique. A particularly worrisome ingredient of their success, according to this coverage, is Google’s shunning of data and significant experience regarding how they approach selection to meet their staffing needs. Laszlo Bock, Google’s vice president for people operations (and formerly of know-it-all Goliath GE), unabashedly asserts that “interviews are a terrible predictor of performance.” Wow. This conclusion flies in the face of everything that has been believed and substantiated over the last 30+ years of use and study of skills-based, behavioral interviewing. Of course, success depends on the identification and definition of success criteria that speak to not only what the job-holder needs to be able to do, but how he/she needs to be able to do it. It’s not uncommon for organizations of all types to encounter challenges when implementing true behavioral interviewing. Assuming that their criteria and questions are sound, typically the key contributor to uneven results is the lack of effective use of the skills-based, behavioral interview guide by interviewers. This challenge is fairly easily addressed by conducting skill-building workshops for interviewers and can be augmented by ongoing coaching. If needed, the tool itself can be tweaked. An excellent complement to interviews is a validated assessment instrument (or test). Tests are not a replacement for interviews, partly because interviews are not just for companies culling candidates but rather serve to allow candidates to cull out the right companies for them as well. Right now, Google is hot; so their selection process is less critical to their success. But history tells us that everything runs in cycles. If Google wants to sustain its level of success, behavioral interviewing is part of its future to recruit top talent. If Google has struggled with interviews to date, they need to avoid simply turning to a different tool – personality-based testing, body scans, Tarot cards - and hoping for better results.

When Google actively or passively portrays that they have a better way does a disservice not only to Google, but to all the wanna-be’s who hang on every utterance from uber-successes like Google. By failing to define success criteria (see my earlier item), Google and all those who follow its lead are, at best, shooting from the hip and less able to repeat their selection successes. Just as the great environmentalist, Barry Commoner, informed us that there is “no free lunch” when it comes to taking from our ecosystem, business leaders have to come to grips with the fact that an initial investment in a comprehensive selection process inclusive of success criteria must be made if they hope to reap their desired results: great people for their organizations. And part of finding AND attracting great people is a relevant, professional interview process. If you misspell a word in a Google search, the engine shows you the correct spelling and asks you if that’s what you meant to enter. Perhaps what Mr. Bock meant to say is that, to be effective:

• interviews need to be based on success criteria that address technical skills (the what) and performance skills (the how), and
• interviewers need to be trained to effectively conduct interviews, gather the needed information, rate skills, and then select the best candidates for Google.

Everyone from Wal-Mart to Intel uses such processes to great effect, as do the majority of companies on Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work For” list. Interestingly, Google tops that list. But to establish sustainable their success and their position on lists like this, they need to know how to repeat their successes by design, not by accident.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article on June 28, 2007, noting that Google was losing a bit of its employment magnetism as up-and-coming competitors were poaching Google’s talent with increasing success. The sky is far from falling, but there are clouds gathering. With just a hint of trouble and their considerable power and appeal very much intact, now is the perfect time for Google to shift from responding to the questions about what makes them “special” by gazing adoringly at their reflection in the mirror. Instead, Google needs to start asking questions of its people, it prospects, and those who choose other paths how it can be better. With better information and perspective in hand – some as good as ever and some more challenging – Google then needs to conduct a search on effective behavioral interviewing and create a sustainable system for repeating its selection successes and eliminating its weaknesses and mistakes. I’m sure Google is capable, but are they willing? Given the way Google has redefined our culture, I am hopeful they will extend their success by actively seeking to avoid the missteps of so many of their “IT company” predecessors.

©2007 Applied Knowledge Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved.