The Future According to Google’s Larry Page Fortune Magazine

According to Fortune and All Business magazines, Google is the fourth-most admired company in the United States. Google was also listed as the top company to work for in both 2007 and 2008. The main reason for this employee admiration is Google’s cross-functional organizational structure, which the company maintains though stellar leadership and innovative management techniques.

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful

1. Problem identification – what business problem is this company faced with? Google is reinventing just about everything — including itself. Since Google’s founding in 1998, Page and cofounder Sergey Brin set out to build a company that made long-term bets on audacious ideas. Many quickly became essential products. While Page has done much to restore Google’s sense of urgency and competitive edge, the company continues to face enormous challenges: * The battle with Apple (AAPL) for dominance in mobile computing is as fierce as ever. * Investors remain unnerved by the prospects for advertising, Google’s core business, on smaller screens. * A few things worry Google more than the possibility of head-on fights with regulators. Years-long government probes in the U.S. and Europe could still result in blockbuster antitrust cases that could gum up the gears of innovation for years to come. * Page has long said that the biggest threat facing Google is Google itself, and since becoming CEO he has zeroed in on bloat, bureaucracy, and just about anything that slows innovation.

2. Objectives – what is the leadership challenge in the company? When Larry Page took over in April 2011, Google’s once-phenomenal innovation engine was showing signs of age, and bureaucracy was beginning to take root. Page quickly reorganized the company to give top executives more responsibility and accountability and to sharpen Google’s focus on a handful of product areas. The result is a more top-down and aggressive organization.

Instead of setting goals for them, Google’s management helps their employees meet the objectives that the employees set for themselves. The company sees its managers as leaders who facilitate inspiration and empower employees.

Market-based principles ensure that the best ideas receive funding. The system ensures that interesting ideas—even those that aren’t obvious fits for Google’s capabilities or core business model—receive some degree of attention. However, Google’s approach hasn’t demonstrated that it can actually create successful businesses. Despite the hype, more than 95 percent of Google’s revenues trace back to Web-based search advertising. Further, as the company’s explosive growth has slowed, innovative employees have left to form new ventures.

3. Analysis- what leadership traits does this leader have, favourable or unfavourable to the company’s goals? * Page is a quirky introvert who lacks the outsize charisma of a typical CEO. * He is personable, with a low-key sense of humor and a healthy mix of humility and confidence. * But Page is intensely private, and to outsiders he often comes off as arrogant; To Wall Street and much of the outside world, he remains a mystery. * The lack of communication, Schachter says, is particularly frustrating in light of some of Page’s big strategic bets. “When you spend $12 billion to buy Motorola and don’t explain what the strategy is, it makes it difficult for investors.” * The “70-20-10 rule” represents a managerial guideline, but it also authorizes the employees to take risks. Google executives encourage employees and managers to work directly with each other, instead of through more formal channels. The executives work closely with employees and other departments in a form of cross-functional management. Google’s open communication contributes to the organizational structure and their idea policy is one of the most substantial managerial features. It gives the staff a sense that they contribute to the company’s business objectives.

4. Recommendation- what kind of leadership should this company have then? Should the leader maintain this style or are there any points for improvement?

Google is voted as No. 1 on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For. Thus this is a great challenge for Page to lead this company. But Page seems to be the perfect leader for Google since it is running more cohesively and faster than when Page took over. He scrapped Google’s old structure, made up of massive engineering and product-management groups, and replaced it with seven product-focused units dedicated to areas like search, ad products, Android, and commerce. The executives heading each of the units now have full responsibility — and accountability — for their fates.

However, in the reshuffle, some executives got less prominent roles, and some chose to leave. Now that he is CEO, Page is willing to sow dissent as he rethinks Google. While cutting products became a matter of pride under Page’s mandate to focus, those who had worked on shuttered products were often dismayed. Internally, some old-timers who were close to Page also grumble that he has become less accessible. Page pushes willingly and forcefully past obstacles with an overriding purpose: to make sure Google succeeds in the post-PC era. Maybe, Page can be more of a people-oriented rather than a task-oriented leader. So he can maintain loyalty among his employees and encourage them to stay in the company. Maybe another trait that he can possibly develop is his sociability skills.