“Googley” Leadership

As part of its leadership development program, the Richmond Ambulance Authority runs a year-long leadership academy (RAALA) for newly arrived or promoted managers. The academy, which meets monthly, delivers leadership and management seminars on all aspects of EMS administration and operation, from high-performance EMS to medico-legal, billing and HR issues. In the opening month of the 2015 academy, students were given books to read by well-known leaders to identify key learning points and determine how they could apply them in the RAA workplace. One of the book reviews is presented here.

Google is a $50 billion organization with thousands of employees that bases its success on creative insights to produce something that users will find easy to use and useful. The employees who have these creative insights are called creatives and they bring diversity, innovation, passion and intelligence that all combine to an attribute that is famously named “Googleyness.” The founders of Google have made this attribute the foundation of their organizational culture which has attracted some of the most innovative and intelligent young creatives the Tech world has to offer. What is the actual attraction to the idea of “Googleyness”? It is the leadership style of Google that allows for this collection of people to share their creative insights with the world that has ultimately brought about social change.

Finding great leadership was the first step Google took to ensure the ideal culture was created and the vision of what they would like the organization to become was executed. Google defined its culture as an environment where different departments could collaborate to solve an issue, one where employees who get over-stimulated in the work area can have in-building retreats, where employees are trusted to do what they do best and express their creativity, and finally where employees aren’t made to stay late, but instead given a project and deadline and allowed to figure out on their own how to get it done. This freedom is a strategy that allows employees to feel less stressed, take accountability and let creativity flourish into innovative solutions.

Of course, leadership must find employees they can trust with this type of freedom. Google started with the concept from the very beginning that people should be hired based on potential, not necessarily experience. The idea is not to hire someone who’s already an expert in a role, but to hire someone with the intelligence to learn. They’ll be more likely to think “outside-the-box” because they won’t know what isn’t possible. Also, they’ll have a better ability to handle change. Change is inevitable in every industry. Therefore, creative insights are needed to spearhead the process of change. Also, a new hire must be passionate and have character. Both of these factors are a huge part of “Googleyness” because they drive the success behind useful innovations. Passion creates the work ethic. Character shows you’re well-rounded and engaged with the world. Consequently, you know about people and what they need. And you’d better believe if these attributes are required of new hires, the same is required of leadership.

Not everything at Google is all a creative flow of energy and trust exercises. Leadership must know how to make decisions based on the details of the data provided. They also have to balance when not to get caught up in the details and trust the smart people around them. Data is best understood by those closest to the issue, which is often not management. Just like an interface is the connector between a database and a user, communication is the connector between data and useful information. In fact, Google believes in over-communicating. However, the over-communication must reinforce core themes you want everyone to get, be effective, interesting, fun or inspirational. It must be authentic, humble and reach the right people. Also, praise is underused and underappreciated as a management tool.

Google’s take on leadership has produced amazing results in innovation and propelled the company to the forefront of technology. The concept that people are the most precious resource has developed a system where people are the crucial element to Google’s success. And an innovative leader is not afraid to make mistakes because those mistakes create experience, and experience evolves to good judgment. In turn, good judgment allows a leader to collect the right people with “Googleyness” around them.

Sean Burton has been employed with the Richmond (VA) Ambulance Authority for nine years. As the supervisor of reimbursement, he is responsible for managing, training and the assessment of medical coders for transport billing.

Ching-Wei Meng is a senior accountant with over 25 years of accounting/finance experience. He is responsible for the preparation of the monthly financial statements at the Richmond (VA) Ambulance Authority.

Amit Patel is an assistant field operation supervisor at the Richmond (VA) Ambulance Authority. He has been in EMS for 10 years, 7 of which have been working for RAA.

Robin McGuire is the payroll and benefits manager at the Richmond (VA) Ambulance Authority. She is a seasoned HR professional and has dealt with many facets of human resource management in her career.