Who was working on the problem? Was the right team in place? Did they have what they needed to succeed? âWhen I became CEO of Google,â Sundar Pichai says, âBill advised me that at that level, more than ever before, you need to bet on people. Choose your team. Think much harder about that.
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I was also told that a brand-new CEO shouldnât be trying to make huge acquisitions. I was âcrazy,â as one of our investment bankers put it, because the numbers would never work out and this was an impossible âsaleâ to the street.
The banker had a point. Itâs true that on paper the deal didnât make obvious sense. But I felt certain that this level of ingenuity was worth more than any of us understood or could calculate at the time. Itâs perhaps not the most responsible advice in a book like this to say that leaders should just go out there and trust their gut, because it might be interpreted as endorsing impulsivity over thoughtfulness, gambling rather than careful study. As with everything, the key is awareness, taking it all in and weighing every factorâyour own motivations, what the people you trust are saying, what careful study and analysis tell you, and then what analysis canât tell you. You carefully consider all of these factors, understanding that no two circumstances are alike, and then, if youâre in charge, it still ultimately comes down to instinct. Is this right or isnât it? Nothing is a sure thing, but you need at the very least to be willing to take big risks. You canât have big wins without them.
But through that coaching he also showed them how to coach their people and teams, which made them much more effective managers and leaders. Time and time again, they note that whenever they face an interesting situation, they ask themselves, what would Bill do? And we realized, we do it, too. What would Bill do? How would the coach handle this situation?
Dean Gilbert, a former executive at Google and @Home, and an accomplished management coach in his own right, notes that âBill would build an envelope of trust very quickly. It was a natural thing for him, this ability to build rapport, a sense of comfort and protection. Itâs the cornerstone of any coaching in business.
Not surprisingly, when Google conducted a study to determine the factors behind high-performing teams, psychological safety came out at the top of the list. (More details about the study can be found in James Graham, âWhat Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team,â New York Times, February 25, 2016.)
Get the team right and youâll get the issue right.