Google – Top Executive Management Tour Palo Alto

An invitation from Google to San Francisco and Palo Alto. A look inside one of the most important and valuable companies of our time – with an “executive line-up”. Answers to the much-discussed topic of digital transformation.

This opportunity had to be seized. And so I travelled to the West coast with my 5-month-old daughter in tow. A long flight, a big time difference – a worthwhile investment. And this, although America presented itself to me with a double standard.

CO2 reduction is on everyone’s lips. Self-propelled cars promise more safety on the roads. On the streets themselves, however, there are countless large pickups and in front of each building even larger parking spaces. Public transportation is basically non-existent. At the plentiful brunch buffet for us top executives, the shiny apples – every one looking exactly the same, without a dint or imperfection – are marked “vegan”. Palo Alto, one of the most expensive residential areas, is not far from the city centre of San Francisco. The port city with the Golden Gate Bridge is currently home to more homeless people than ever before.

Already the first presentations provided me with answers as to why America and Silicon Valley are able to make sense of our time and why the companies and the personalities behind them are therefore able to make an even bigger impact in the world.

Three essential components I see are the understanding of exponential growth & openness to change; personalized service & emotional communication and the new kind of leadership & qualitative measurement.

Understanding exponential growth & openness to change.

Pascal Finette (Chair of Singularity University for Entrepreneurship & Open Innovation) explains why we are all struggling with change. Our brain works linearly. Our lives are linear. Digitalization, on the other hand, leads to exponential development. This is not easy to understand. The development curve starts off gradually, steadily. Then suddenly: We watch the quantum leaps in disbelief. For example: In 1999, a DNA analysis cost USD 2.7 billion. Today the decoding of our genomes costs just USD 270. The power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has increased 300,000-fold over the past six years.

Change is a fact of life. No one here is asking what’s going to change, but rather what won’t change. We are not going online, we are online. The meetings and presentations make this clear. Uncertainty is greeted with a great openness. I feel GRIT. A psychological trait, a characteristic that predicts sustained passion and perseverance in dealing with long-term goals. Angela Duckworth has explored this trait. Personalities with a high degree of grit keep their motivation and determination high – even if they encounter setbacks and mistakes on the way to their goal. And that is exactly what we in Europe lack from time to time.

Personalized service & emotional communication.

In a world of prosperity and abundance, in a world of “constantly” and “always accessible”, the most valuable things are the rare, the unique. In this day and age, brand and reputation become even more valuable, personal encounters are pivotal, experience is a must and personalization a necessity.

Avinash Kaushik (Indian entrepreneur and a specialist in data analysis) sums it up well. Millions of dollars and marketing budgets are spent on demographic data analysis or annoying surveys. Wrong. Through data analysis, it is now possible to investigate a consumer’s intentions by examining his behaviour. And that is the key to success: understanding people. His plea: Take a close look at your people and invest in those who are experienced in artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML). 5% of the workforce should master machine learning. 25% of corporate functions should be supported by machine learning. And 50% of digital analyses should be done by ML.

Today, thanks to the digital possibilities, people and customers are more curious, more demanding and more impatient. Personalized service is a key factor in maintaining lasting visibility. And thanks to digital behaviour analysis, this service can be optimized many times over. Accessibility (Amazon), convenience (Apple store) and curation (Spotify) determine tomorrow’s success today.

If you want to be heard, to convincingly win over an audience, emotional communication is essential. Not one of the top speakers failed to weave in his personal story – even when speaking on complex topics such as blockchain or new branches of medicine. Each speaker opened his presentation with a reference to his unique story. And every one of them succeeded in captivating the audience and underpinning their own credibility. We could learn from this ourselves – especially in Switzerland. Be authentic, but don’t be afraid to add a little bit of flavour.

The new kind of leadership & qualitative measurement.

Ruth Porat (CFO of Alphabet Inc., formerly CFO of Morgan Stanley) was one of the strong leadership personalities I met over the course of my visit. She also impressed me as a woman and with her attitude to life.

When asked what advice she considered to be most important, she replied: communication. You can never communicate too much. Repeat over and over and over what is important to you. And never take communication for granted – especially in times like today.

She also explained what leadership means at Google. A transparent culture is not just empty words, it is lived. Once a week, the founding fathers Larry Page and Sergey Brin answer questions. And they explain again and again what their vision is and why. Google’s executive floor is comparatively small – whereas one might expect large individual offices with stunning views to be there standard, here the interior is made up instead of meeting zones – white walls where important discussions can be recorded.

Every Google employee is a shareholder. Everyone therefore bears direct responsibility. Leadership according to OKR is seen as the most important element. “Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)” is a management method that combines the goals of the company with those of each individual employee and sets a clear focus for the next three months. OKRs help the company to: generate clarity about the most important tasks in the company; create transparency; introduce better communication or link vision, mission and strategy to short-term operational planning.

A short fly-by visit – and yet a journey that convinced me that, especially for my daughter, I would like to stay on the ball. Live authenticity. Open more doors. Stay curious. Make a difference. And implement communication with my customers in such a way that it continues to create true added value. Let’s set off for our very own land of unlimited possibilities. Because it is up to us whether we dare the “Moonshot”.

A few links to read and browse:

Pascal Finette
Ruth Porat
Philipp Schindler
Amin Toufani
Diane Green
Astro Teller