Fostering the Spirit of Entrepreneurship

While on a recent pleasure trip to my home country, India, I visited the new R&D centre of Google. What a facility – wow! This sprawling research centre houses about 150 of the brightest minds from across the world to further Google’s engineering capabilities. I met Phd’s who apply their expertise to launch consumer-relevant products and services. Most people I interacted with are geography-agnostic. All they care about is a place where they can work with like-minded thought leaders. Google has built a unique culture with its 80:20 philosophy to achieve effective human resource management. The engineers work independently – donning the hat of an entrepreneur; and each one of them is mandated to devote atleast 20% of project time on special/personal projects that are eventually brought to the market through Google’s global work-force collaboration. A classic example of the success of this amazing entrepreneurial culture is the launch of Google Finance. What started off as one of the 20’s project for three bright engineers at Google has become a case study for lean production in digital media. In the process, Google has dismissed the age old theory that mega corporations are less likely to be nimble and fleet footed, when it comes to breaking the shackles of organizational hierarchy and the associated bureaucracy. The company has successfully designed an organization structure that fosters innovation and the spirit of entrepreneurship. In addition, Google has overlaid efficient systems and process that ensure maximum yield and employee productivity. This visit to the Google campus has reinforced the thought that entrepreneurial instincts don’t just come by birth. It is not a genetic phenomenon. Rather, the spirit of entrepreneurship can be fostered by intelligent management practices – through an organization structure; systems & processes; and culture that is deliberately designed to achieve desired outcome – in this case, developing market leading products and services to sustain the competitive advantage. No wonder - not only leading head hunters are making cold calls to the Google R&D campus; but leading VCs (from around the world) are trying to lure these Google entrepreneurs in ‘Search’ of the next big thing!