What, if anything, is unique about Google 's approach to global management training at Google?
Global training with Google’s Associate Product Manager (APM) program is quite different from global management training at other companies in several ways. First and foremost, rather than a short-term program held at or near the home office discussing the challenges of cross-cultural management, Google’s training program runs for two years, and sends APMs accepted into the program on a 16 day four city trip during the second year not to work in the Google offices, but rather to experience everyday life and to visit Google in other countries rather than work there full time (Levy, 2007). While on the surface it seems very superficial and having little …show more content…
While this might seem counterintuitive, simple everyday activities like shopping involve a lot of the skills needed to be an effective manager in many cultures, such as negotiation, allocation of resources, and communication. This type of immersion training where managers are placed in unfamiliar surroundings and forced to seek to understand and be aware of their experiences builds skills they can also use when they return to the home office (Steers, 2013). What also sets Google’s APM global management training program apart is who they select. They focus on hiring employees who have some entrepreneurial experience and do not expect these managers to be with the company in five years, an investment few companies would even consider making. According to Marissa Mayer (then a Google Vice President, now CEO of Yahoo!) said “We get two to four good years, and if 20 percent stay with the company, that 's a good rate. Even if they leave it 's still good for …show more content…
By giving their APMs seemingly mundane and menial tasks in unfamiliar environments, and adding the incentive of a prize for the highest performing employee, these managers are forced to become not only more aware of their surroundings, but their own actions and responses as well. In order to succeed, they need to process these observations and experiences while seeking to be understood and use them to develop an action plan in order to complete the task. The more success they have with the first learning strategy, the better toolset they have to work within the second, leading to a higher likelihood of winning the incentive. Going back to what Levy has mentioned about the entrepreneurial experience and mindset of those selected for the program, another reason why this program has been so successful for Google is that these entrepreneurial-minded employees will internalize these experiences and then translate them into new product developments aimed at providing solutions or filling market demands in these formerly foreign environments.
Would Google 's approach work better at some type of organizations than
Global training with Google’s Associate Product Manager (APM) program is quite different from global management training at other companies in several ways. First and foremost, rather than a short-term program held at or near the home office discussing the challenges of cross-cultural management, Google’s training program runs for two years, and sends APMs accepted into the program on a 16 day four city trip during the second year not to work in the Google offices, but rather to experience everyday life and to visit Google in other countries rather than work there full time (Levy, 2007). While on the surface it seems very superficial and having little …show more content…
While this might seem counterintuitive, simple everyday activities like shopping involve a lot of the skills needed to be an effective manager in many cultures, such as negotiation, allocation of resources, and communication. This type of immersion training where managers are placed in unfamiliar surroundings and forced to seek to understand and be aware of their experiences builds skills they can also use when they return to the home office (Steers, 2013). What also sets Google’s APM global management training program apart is who they select. They focus on hiring employees who have some entrepreneurial experience and do not expect these managers to be with the company in five years, an investment few companies would even consider making. According to Marissa Mayer (then a Google Vice President, now CEO of Yahoo!) said “We get two to four good years, and if 20 percent stay with the company, that 's a good rate. Even if they leave it 's still good for …show more content…
By giving their APMs seemingly mundane and menial tasks in unfamiliar environments, and adding the incentive of a prize for the highest performing employee, these managers are forced to become not only more aware of their surroundings, but their own actions and responses as well. In order to succeed, they need to process these observations and experiences while seeking to be understood and use them to develop an action plan in order to complete the task. The more success they have with the first learning strategy, the better toolset they have to work within the second, leading to a higher likelihood of winning the incentive. Going back to what Levy has mentioned about the entrepreneurial experience and mindset of those selected for the program, another reason why this program has been so successful for Google is that these entrepreneurial-minded employees will internalize these experiences and then translate them into new product developments aimed at providing solutions or filling market demands in these formerly foreign environments.
Would Google 's approach work better at some type of organizations than