Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998. Google is a reputable organization that deals with internet content and the provision of services and products important for information organization. Examples of services and products provided include Google Maps, AdSense, Gmail, and AdWords. Barely four years since its formation, Google had about 500 employees and by ten years, they were over 50,000. At the moment, Google has over 75,000 staff across the globe (Jiang & Men, 2017). Google has a relative cohesion company culture it instills to its employees across the world. Without these values combined with effective communication, the company would not have been able to operate efficiently as it does.
Summary of the Communication Strategy
Marcel Schwantes (2016) in his article “6 Companies That Teach Us What It Takes To Communicate Exceptionally Well”, discusses how innovative communication processes have helped Google resolve issues revolving around internal communication. Managers in most organizations make the mistake of not sharing the information which leads to high turnover. Usually, controlled-based leadership that involves sharing of information only among the top managerial kills trust between them and their employees. Google, however, has a team of leaders that are committed to the organization’s culture of both organizational and personal transparency.
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Laszlo Bock in his Work Rules reveals that transparency is one of the cornerstones of Goggle’ s culture . Google gives even the newly hired software engineers most of their codes on the first day of work. In addition, they organize several talks every month to reveal what they are working on. The talks are recorded and made available for everybody within the organization. Also, Google lists and promotes cross-cultural networks and clubs among women, men, and transgender individuals. Notably, the co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin host the TGIF-all hands meeting for the entire company either in person or on video, weekly (Schwantes, 2016). Usually, the meetings are for the prior weeks’ updates, introduction on newly hired individuals to the rest of staff, product demonstrations, and a session of questions and answers which happens to be the most important part of the meeting.
Analysis of Google’s Communication Strategy
It is worth noting that if leaders want to propel their organization towards better results, including healthier profits, they must be willing to be comfortable with the unabashed truth about themselves and the organization in multiple levels of the business. This has been the case for Google with the company having an organizational culture of transparency among staff and the managerial team. Research reveals that consumers tend to be loyal to brands that offer transparency (Schnackenberg & Tomlinson, 2016). The impacts of transparent communication on Google are not just limited to internal but also external. The high levels of open and honest communication at Google are positively correlated to the volume of sales made. At the moment Google has approximately 70% of market share (Jian & Men, 2017). Such voluminous sales in the industry have been made possible by the transparency culture within the organization.
In addition, services offered by the company have tremendously improved due to transparent communication. Often the art of miscommunication has cost companies the quality of services delivered. This is not the case for Google. At the company, if an employee complains about the other or writes a nasty email about them, they are tagged and may be added to Bock’s thread of work rules. By valuing a transparent communication culture, Google teaches its employees trustworthiness and good judgment (Jiang &Men, 2017). In addition, it empowers them, sequentially improving the delivery of services and other areas such as decision making, and innovation which is important for continuous improvement of the organization.
Another impact of transparent communication has been felt in the smooth operations of the value chain of Google. Transparent communication has gone beyond visibility into the extended supply chain for the company. With the proliferation of technology and pervasive use of social media, both upstream and downstream risks have become close. Transparent communication has helped manage the risks through openly identifying them, visualizing, and managing and monitoring risks. Sequentially the value chain of the organization has been improved.
Integration Techniques
Google ’s transparency communication strategy could be integrated into my former workplace where I was a County mail worker. The first way is by the management team being open about salaries. Often there were rumors and backstabbing that some employees in the same job level received a higher remuneration than others. The differences in payment created a lot of mistrust, undermined employees’ productivity, and even led to a lawsuit at some point. The second way is by having county mail workers be open about the number of mails they will deliver. Transparent communication will prevent the loss of people’s parcels and mails which has been frequent in the organization. The final way is holding bi-monthly meetings between the staff and the managerial team. Just like Google, the organization should have a question and answer questions where important issues in the organization are raised. Open communication will not only empower employees but will create a sense of trustworthiness.
References
Jiang, H., & Men, R. L. (2017). Creating an engaged workforce: The impact of authentic leadership, transparent organizational communication, and work-life enrichment. Communication Research , 44 (2), 225-243.
Schnackenberg, A. K., & Tomlinson, E. C. (2016). Organizational transparency: A new perspective on managing trust in organization-stakeholder relationships. Journal of Management , 42 (7), 1784-1810.
Schwantes, M. (2016). 6 Companies That Teach Us What It Takes to Communicate Exceptionally Well. Retrieved 16 December 2019, from https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/6-companies-that-teach-us-what-it-takes-to-communicate-exceptionally-well.html
