Work Rules!

Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead

By: Laszlo Bock

Narrated by: Laszlo Bock

Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

From the visionary head of Google's innovative People Operations comes a groundbreaking inquiry into the philosophy of work - and a blueprint for attracting the most spectacular talent to your business and ensuring that they succeed. "We spend more time working than doing anything else in life. It's not right that the experience of work should be so demotivating and dehumanizing". So says Laszlo Bock, former head of People Operations at the company that transformed how the world interacts with knowledge.

This insight is the heart of Work Rules!, a compelling and surprisingly playful manifesto that offers lessons including:

• Take away managers' power over employees
• Learn from your best employees-and your worst
• Hire only people who are smarter than you are, no matter how long it takes to find them
• Pay unfairly (it's more fair!)
• Don't trust your gut: Use data to predict and shape the future
• Default to open-be transparent and welcome feedback
• If you're comfortable with the amount of freedom you've given your employees, you haven't gone far enough.

Drawing on the latest research in behavioral economics and a profound grasp of human psychology, Work Rules! also provides teaching examples from a range of industries-including lauded companies that happen to be hideous places to work and little-known companies that achieve spectacular results by valuing and listening to their employees. Bock takes us inside one of history's most explosively successful businesses to reveal why Google is consistently rated one of the best places to work in the world, distilling 15 years of intensive worker R&D into principles that are easy to put into action, whether you're a team of one or a team of thousands.

Work Rules! shows how to strike a balance between creativity and structure, leading to success you can measure in quality of life as well as market share. RListen to it to build a better company from within rather than from above; listen to it to reawaken your joy in what you do.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2015 Laszlo Bock (P)2015 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"A human resource professional and natural-sounding speaker, [Bock] delivers his book with a combination of boyish wonder and a matter-of-fact conviction." ( AudioFile)

A solid book on changing how HR should operate

LB does a great job of breaking down what has been discovered and implemented at Google over the decade that he was there.
Not everything is directly applicable at all levels of business, but a surprisingly large amount is.

Must have for anyone that manages or leads people.

So good I bought the hardcover for my bookcase so that I can refer back to it as needed, or loan it out to other managers.

A must read for any aspiring entrepreneur

As an employee of a Silicon Valley tech company myself, this was such a fascinating insight in to how “Google Culture” was born and how they have maintained the culture to this day. This book is full of fantastic tips and advice for anyone in management as well. Highly recommended.

work rules was awesome

I recommend this book for anyone who really cares about the people in your organization, whether you lead them or work among them.

great book on Google's culture

Great insights into one of the world's most successful companies. Some great take aways.

Just what we needed

Just what we needed as our young company grew quickly. I often felt like this book was written just for us 😅. Inspired and implementing a lot of the strategies contained within. Highly recommend.

Inspirational for openness and values

Great book giving a very good overview of how Google operates and more importantly the value of collecting valuable data and signals is whatever that we do and try to use it as an interaction for personal development and also building a company.

LOVE this book!

As an HR professional, I can't emphasize hope important this book is. As Laszlo notes, our field doesn't have the best reputation. This is about smart people operations that is data driven and people focused. I'm so excited to take these principles into my workplace.

Questions on culture?

...this is s great place to start. It's not all about $$$$ to pay people, it's about so many things that cost nothing - like trust, flexibility and kindness. This is very much a worthwhile read.

fantastic narration by the author

really great depth and ideas and examples here. One of the best audiobooks I've enjoyed.