Alphabet chairman shares top advice for managers
When Eric Schmidt joined Google in 2001, it was only a search engine company, three years from being listed on the stock market for the first time. At the end of a decade spent as CEO, Schmidt had helped turn Google into a company that had 32,000 employees and $38 billion in revenue. Here is his advice for managers.
In an episode of the ”Master of Scale” podcast, hosted by LinkedIn co-founder and chairman Reid Hoffman, Eric Schmidt explains how his first years as CEO at Google taught him the foundation on how leadership in such a company works. He relies on two key aspects: freedom of decision and the speed at which decisions are taken.
“The most important thing to do is to have quick decisions,” Schmidt told Hoffman. “And you’ll make some mistakes, but you need decision-making.”
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He thus decided to allow Google employees to present every week a plan that the board of the company could decide to act upon or not, with the strongest emphasis being placed on efficiency. “I cannot tell you how many people have told me that at Google decisions are made today quickly in almost every case, even at our current scale,” Schmidt said. “And that’s a legacy of that decision. Most large corporations have too many lawyers, too many decision-makers, unclear owners, and things congeal, they occur very slowly,” he explains.
“I cannot tell you how many people have told me that at Google decisions are made today quickly in almost every case, even at our current scale,” Schmidt said. “And that’s a legacy of that decision. Most large corporations have too many lawyers, too many decision-makers, unclear owners, and things congeal, they occur very slowly,” he explains.
He used the YouTube acquisition to prove his point, by stating that the decision process took 10 days from start to finish, since everyone knew their responsibilities. “Even if it’s the wrong decision, a quick decision is better than almost every case,” he concluded.
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