Google's Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter?

Case Analysis:

Google's Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter?

Francisco Bonilla

University of Houston-Victoria

Executive Summary

Google is a company which strongly believes that it is structured and built around its people. Google claims that it is the people who make them the company that they are. The main objective of an organizational behavior is that people are the focal point of an organization; their behavior determines the success. An organizational behavior focuses on the importance of human behavior and underlines management’s importance. Google is known for hiring good talent across the globe. Their focus in a hiring process is not only based on experience, but they place equal importance on a person’s ability. Earlier Google struggled to pinpoint the deficiencies within the management team. Project Oxygen, led by the Pilab team within Google, took an initiative to research the shortcomings within the management team in Google. The focus of the project was to determine the characteristics of a good manager.  Surveys and research were held by a team to govern and comprehend good managers and management.

The objective is how Project Oxygen focused on management surveys to determine the desired results by the management team. The Project Oxygen team was created to comprehend how much of a role managers had in creating a robust team in Google. It rationalizes the business challenges and strategies. It assesses decision-making of Google’s management and the approach taken by the management. Data from a range of time periods was used in assessing the need to improve the management structure in the organization.

Case Assignment: Google's Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter?

This case study focuses on Google’s management and its objectives towards growth and its culture. It streamlines their challenges within business and business strategy. It assesses the decision-making of Google’s management and the approach taken by the management. Decision-making requires certain steps to be effective. The steps of decision-making are coming up with alternatives, assessing the alternatives, choosing the alternative, implementing the alternative, and finally learning from feedback. The strategy was to use data in their decision-making process to eliminate any opinions which can possibly be biased (Garvin, 2013).  This case study supports the actions and approaches which were taken by the management to determine those focused challenges. Management also is essentially responsible for providing results both efficiently and effectively.

Google has a reputation of a being prestigious company. Everyone within its industry respects Google as a company. Every young student who has focused within this industry has a desire to work for such a company. Google has a unique program to recruit talent. Through this program, they are successful in bringing on good talent. Google claims that it is the people within the organization who make them a respected company. “It’s really the people that make Google the kind of company it is. Google hire people who are smart and determined, and favor ability over experience” (Google, 2015). This describes the common trait of an organizational behavior: which points that the people within the organizations are the most important factor. Organization behavior is a study of how individuals within the organization respond and act within the organization (Jones & George, 2014). Google is truly a diverse company; it has people from every background and culture. This enabled Google to focus on an open-culture concept. Management’s focus has been to create an environment which promotes openness and collaboration. Open culture promotes employees to be open to each other. Management has created an environment which is not only suitable for their employees but also more in line with what employees desire and are comfortable with. These results probably did require time and previous experience for Google to be where it stands today. The offices provided by Google are suitable to employee needs with state-of-the-art buildings with open-concept workstations. It also supports extracurricular activities such as gymnasium usage, free meal services, and theater room access.

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