Google has applied data analytics to management to identify what makes a great manager. But instead of just listing best pratices they ranked the best practices and listed them in order of priority, from most-important to least-important.
“For much of its 13-year history, Google has taken a pretty simple approach to management: Leave people alone but if employees become stuck, they should ask their bosses, whose deep technical expertise propelled them into management in the first place. Now the Economic Times reports that statisticians at Google looking for characteristics that define good managers have gathered more than 10,000 observations about managers — across more than 100 variables, from various performance reviews, feedback surveys and other reports and found that technical expertise ranks dead last among Google’s eight most important characteristics of good managers. What Google employees value most are even-keeled bosses who made time for one-on-one meetings, who helped people puzzle through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers, and who took an interest in employees’ lives and careers.”
What does it mean for a manager ? As the autor of the study says:
“What it means is, if I’m a manager and I want to get better, and I want more out of my people and I want them to be happier, two of the most important things I can do is just make sure I have some time for them and to be consistent. And that’s more important than doing the rest of the stuff.”
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