Comments on: Google as an example of the new human enterprise? http://www.thomaspurves.com/2007/03/05/google-as-an-example-of-the-new-human-enterprise/ Wed, 21 Jul 2010 04:39:45 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Rohan Jayasekera http://www.thomaspurves.com/2007/03/05/google-as-an-example-of-the-new-human-enterprise/comment-page-1/#comment-7659 Rohan Jayasekera Tue, 06 Mar 2007 06:44:22 +0000 http://www.thomaspurves.com/2007/03/05/google-as-an-example-of-the-new-human-enterprise/#comment-7659 I'm not a Googler (though I probably wouldn't mind being one), but I was an IPSAn. That is, an employee of I.P. Sharp Associates, a Canadian multinational that was acquired by Reuters in 1987. IPSA was so far ahead of its time that CBC's "Ideas" radio program did a one-hour show about the company. For a 600-person company (at its peak) it was remarkably flat, with essentially three levels: the CEO, the branch/department managers, and everyone else. I believe that this was possible only because the company was email-based from the early 1970s: there is no need for hierarchy to move things around when you can just CC the appropriate people. (Note also that the "new technologies" of voicemail and faxes arrived only later. I believe that the pre-existing email culture largely removed the need for them to be adopted within IPSA, while some other companies remain buried under voicemails even today.) Another characteristic was the lack of targets; the philosophy was to do the best that could be done, not to achieve some arbitrary numbers decreed by "management". CEO Ian Sharp wasn't exactly a shy person, yet disliked leading when people didn't need to be led, and was quoted in a magazine interview as saying that "horrendous decisions tend to make themselves". When I was a department manager there, my focus was not to manage my development teams (except to deal with problems that sometimes arose), but to take care of the things that would take them away from their work, like finding new hires. Like Google, IPSA avoided excessive planning, but that was because as it grew it was largely customer-driven. It started to develop big products only when the existing business was faltering, and the resulting sense of panic caused behaviour more typical of an ordinary company. I believe Google gets away with its laissez-faire approach only because it's making enough money that its management has no need to panic. I’m not a Googler (though I probably wouldn’t mind being one), but I was an IPSAn. That is, an employee of I.P. Sharp Associates, a Canadian multinational that was acquired by Reuters in 1987. IPSA was so far ahead of its time that CBC’s “Ideas” radio program did a one-hour show about the company. For a 600-person company (at its peak) it was remarkably flat, with essentially three levels: the CEO, the branch/department managers, and everyone else. I believe that this was possible only because the company was email-based from the early 1970s: there is no need for hierarchy to move things around when you can just CC the appropriate people. (Note also that the “new technologies” of voicemail and faxes arrived only later. I believe that the pre-existing email culture largely removed the need for them to be adopted within IPSA, while some other companies remain buried under voicemails even today.) Another characteristic was the lack of targets; the philosophy was to do the best that could be done, not to achieve some arbitrary numbers decreed by “management”. CEO Ian Sharp wasn’t exactly a shy person, yet disliked leading when people didn’t need to be led, and was quoted in a magazine interview as saying that “horrendous decisions tend to make themselves”. When I was a department manager there, my focus was not to manage my development teams (except to deal with problems that sometimes arose), but to take care of the things that would take them away from their work, like finding new hires.

Like Google, IPSA avoided excessive planning, but that was because as it grew it was largely customer-driven. It started to develop big products only when the existing business was faltering, and the resulting sense of panic caused behaviour more typical of an ordinary company. I believe Google gets away with its laissez-faire approach only because it’s making enough money that its management has no need to panic.

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