Open Culture

Larry Page and Sergey Brin

 

Open culture is defined as a concept where the development of ideas or knowledges should be free from any restrictions and on also on the basis of collaboration and sharing among people. (Open Culture, 2010). It is founded on the working environment in Google company. Founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin during their PhD studies, it is an American multinational technology company specializing services and products related to the Internet. They practise open culture in their working environment since the start-ups. The employee (Googlers) are all hands-on contributors to feel comfortable in sharing ideas and opinions. Moreover, the offices and cafes are specially created in encouraging Googlers’ interaction across the teams and departments. It is expected that they would spark conversation about either work or play. (Our Culture, 2009)

Meanwhile, there is a weekly all-hands meeting on Fridays called TGIF where Googlers review news and products launches from the past week and a Question and Answer (Q&A) session with the founders.  Larry Page and Sergey Brin are default to open upon the concept that the Googlers are their greatest asset. This allows Googlers to believe that they are trustworthy adults and have good judgement that promotes them to do their jobs more effectively as well as contribute in the ways that beyond the top-down managers’ expectation. (Passion, Not Perks, 2011)

The Google culture of transparency accesses Googlers to nearly every Google’s code to view the goals and objectives of each Googler. Exposing more information to employees lead them to be more context which helps in high performance. In addition, to prevent backstabbing issue among the Googlers, whoever makes complain via email would be added to the email thread, instead, they are asked to have direct conversations with colleagues to solve the conflict. (D'Onfro, 2015)

 

The so-called Truck Pit, one of the four cafeterias in Google’s East Coast headquarters.

A snapshot of Google Engineering Headquarters in Zurich.