Issues related to controlling function and process management at Google

Controlling Function at Google

Analysis of the Control Management Function at Google

Google's ability to innovate quickly indicates how agile and quickly adaptive the company is in interpreting opportunities and threats. The highly innovative culture of the company is continually being improved through intensive hiring, management and management control processes. One of these is the highly successful Rule of 20%, which provides engineers the freedom of using up to 20% of their time on potential new product concepts and ideas (Machlis, 2009). The challenge for Google is controlling the very rapid pace of innovation and growth from a managerial perspective without stopping the momentum of new venture creation and development. The intent of this analysis is to evaluate the controlling function at Google.

Analysis of the Control Management Function at Google

The Google culture is highly collaborative by nature, having 360-degree feedback processes in place to ensure each project team stays in step with others. Management control rarely is authoritarian in nature; it is rather it is more focused on how to create the right combination of skills and innate strengths in a given team to accomplish exceptionally difficult programming tasks and projects (Stone, 2011). Google tends to blend the planning, organizing, leading and controlling aspects of management together towards a common foundation of shared ownership for the fulfillment of the vision of the company (Hamel, 2006). By doing this, control becomes internal to the engineers working on critical projects, they begin to see the projects as much as their own as the company's (Stone, 2011). Google is also a culture that highly values engineering acumen and intelligence, and regards those with exceptional insight in these areas with a rapid career path. This is also part of the control function of their management structure, as the incentives to excel in specific engineering roles is a powerful reward system the company relies on.

Google also uses collaborative goal setting and standards definition to also create ownership of performance objectives. This is an aspect of control within the company that creates task ownership while infusing autonomy, mastery and purpose into each of role and functional area in the company as well (Licker, 2006). Theorists and researchers have observed that Google's entrepreneurial style is more predicated on peer-based expectations, shared task and ownership and clearly defined yet difficult goals and objectives (Licker, 2006). This is consistent with the four models of corporate entrepreneurship that rely on innovation and the development of knowledge as its core differentiator (Wolcott, Lippitz, 2007).