Sundar Pichai and Google Essay Example

issue. These gaps can potentially cause stunts in growth and slow productivity. With the tech industry being mainly males, it is important for Google to reiterate their statements about being a “place where people from different backgrounds and experiences come to do their best work- a place where all Googlers feel they belong” (Class 13.1).

It is important to handle these situations not only because it is the right thing to do but because the public image and reputation of the company is at stake. Even though this situation could be chalked up as one bad egg, Google’s reputation is largely at stake. Often times with situations like these, when one person makes a statement like Damore’s, other people may come forward and it can be a domino effect which would be a dagger for the company.

They have spent years building up the trust of consumers and employees and to lose this trust sets them back in the public eye and ultimately in productivity. It is also important that Google stand by their code of conduct of inclusion that they emphasize it very clearly. Society is everchanging and it is important for them to address things like the memo before it becomes a more serious problem for them. If these problems weren’t addressed, it would feel as though the culture they have promoted for so long is meaningless.

I think it is very important to look at the situation at hand through different scopes. It is very important to gather all of the facts about the situation before addressing whether the actions of Pichai were appropriate and affective.

James Damore was described as an awkward computer nerd who

worked as a software engineer at Google (Lewis, 2017). An article I came across from The Guardian suggests that growing up, James had some difficulties with speech that were accompanied by some incredible talent.

In his mid 20s, Damore was diagnosed with high functioning autism. After an excellent four to five years at Google, he wrote “Google has several biases and honest discussion about these biases is being silenced by the dominant ideology, what follows is by no means the complete story, but it’s a perspective that desperately needs to be told” (Lewis, 2017). In his mind, Google’s statements regarding inclusion and diversity gave him a platform to voice his ideas. His memo was backed by scientific research such as “The Myth of Male Power” and other psychologists.

In the memo itself, Damore argued that “on average” men and women have different psychological traits, and this could provide an explanation as to why there are fewer women in engineering. He also wrote that women are more “interested in people, rather than things”. He also says that women “generally have a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises and speaking up while men are more motivated by status and money. In final, he wrote that his “larger point of view is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don’t fit a certain ideology”.

His email was sent to people who ran Googles diversity meetings and Google’s internal mailing lists and forums. Along with some of the gender gap problems he described, he also offered solutions to these problems. He suggested that they have discussions about diversity programs allowing for company transparency. He also suggests that in

order to decrease the gender gap, less empathy should be placed on diversity issues. Because of his nature, Damore believes that if people are less emotionally engaged in the workplace, biases will be put aside allowing for the facts to be the focus.

Weeks after the memo was released, Damore was fired along with this statement from Pichai, “The memo has impacted our co-workers, some of whom are hurting and feel judged based on their gender”. Pichai did the right thing by releasing a statement against the memo and firing the employee. He is showing that he does hold his employees to their code of conduct. On the opposite side of this, Google’s policy on free speech was expressed by Damore making the situation a little trickier to handle. Pichai came out and said that he does support employees’ rights to speak freely but some of the things in the memo had crossed the line because of the harmful gender stereotypes.

I also think that anytime something like this happens in a company, it is imperative and expected that leaders come forward and make a statement. The timeline of the memo and the firing of James Damore is very interesting. As previously mentioned, Damore was fired weeks after the memo was actually sent out. In fact, I read in an article from the Guardian that it wasn’t until the memo was leaked to the public that Damore was released. This can be viewed from two different perspectives. The first perspective is that maybe Pichai wasn’t very proactive and it wasn’t until the memo became public that he acted upon it.

This shows that Pichai waited until something happened

before addressing the memo. I think if he was able to get ahead of the public leak there may not have been as much backlash from the public. It would also show his authenticity and transparency if he were to make a statement before the press got a hold of the memo. On the other side of this, these weeks that went by could’ve allowed him to gather information and have discussions to figure out the best course of action to take. This showed he had good self-awareness as well as internalized moral perspective. His statements were well thought out and showed that what he was saying was consistent with his own beliefs and morals.

I agree that Pichai’s actions were appropriate, but I do not agree that they were very effective. As I previously mentioned, it is expected that a company makes a statement when something happens internally. The firing of Damore and hiring of a new VP of diversity were concrete steps but, I am more focused on what other concrete steps he is going to take in order to prevent anything like this from happening again. I think a timeline of clear steps would show that he is proactively trying to prevent this from occurring again. As seen in one of our discussion sections, this could be done by determining biases within Google and holding workshops about diversity in the workplace.

Pichai showed us several different leadership styles through ought this case. As previously described as a boring, middle of the road kind of leader he had to transform his style into a more directive style of leadership based on the situation at hand.

The first style of leadership he showed is authentic leadership. Through ought this controversy, he was very transparent letting people know what he was doing and why he was doing it. He was very self-aware, and his statements were in line with his own beliefs.

He was able to demonstrate his balanced processing by being able to analyze clearly and gather information from Googlers before any decisions were made. He also reasoned with those who agreed with parts of the memo and made sure they were understood. This clearly shows that even though some this might infuriate some people he was being his true authentic self. Another style that was strongly embodied was his situational leadership. He always took into account the thoughts and emotions of his employees allowing everyone to have a voice.

His decision to fire Damore was highly directive but after this he was highly supportive. This was obvious as he left vacation in order to hold a town hall so people could share their thoughts. The final and most prevalent leadership style displayed by Pichai is transformational leadership. From our discussion section, he showed idealized influence by sharing his vision of Google, inspirational motivation as he shared his expectations with followers about their conduct and responsibilities, and individualized consideration by creating a supportive climate where he could hear needs of his followers.

An important and pretty obvious lesson learned for leadership in this case is that in today’s society, when leaders are faced with situations like this there is no right answer. In a perfect world, leaders would able to please everyone. With Pichai being a middle of the road leader, he had to

adjust his leadership style in order to handle the situation. This teaches us that leaders must be very adaptable. When different situations arise, a leader must be able to read and react to the situation in a way that reflects the views of both themselves and the organization.

Another lesson that can be learned from this case is that there is no exact guide or formula for success when it comes to leadership. It depends on several different qualities like the type of leader, the group you are leading, goals and expectations. Lastly, I think that these kinds of things are going to happen in a company and its not so much about what happened, but how they respond. What are they going to do after the fact to insure it will repeat itself?

Going forward, I think that controversial topics in organizations such as race, gender, sexual orientation and origin are inevitably going to be brought up. In any internal work environment, these issues will arise because they are so prevalent in society.

I do not think organizations should wait until controversial topics become an issue before addressing them It is important for companies like Google to be a step ahead of these issues. They can accomplish this by constantly reinforcing their code of conduct and mission statement. This will allow them to be up to date with cultural trends and allow for discussion about sensitive topics.

If I was a leader and encountered controversial comments or ideas in my place of work, I would follow closely in the footsteps of Pichai. I would hold a meeting to see what people’s thoughts on the comments were. Depending on

people’s thoughts about the comments, I would determine whether or not these people or this person should be fired or suspended.

Unlike Pichai, I would take quicker action in removing the employee or employees if the comments were severe enough and negatively affected other company. If the comments simply bothered a small group of people and could easily be handled, I would determine a suspension or other consequence. I would then prepare a clear statement giving reasons why I fired or suspended the employee or employees. Next, I would formulate concrete plans based on ideas of employees and higher ups in the company in order to prevent controversial comments or ideas.

For example, giving out surveys determining if there are biases and holding workshops about diversity in the workplace. Lastly, I would make it clear that if anyone had concerns or wanted to talk about the comments or ideas that they are encouraged to do so.

On the opposite side of things, if I were an employee at a company where controversial comments or ideas were said, I would like to have a voice and be heard. Not only would I want my voice to be heard, I would like to have an open forum where anyone with concerns or problems could share them. Although it is important for people’s opinions to be heard, the leader has the final say. Lastly, I would try not to get myself too involved in the situation and rather continue to do my work.

Sundar Pichai was correct to fire James Damore for his memo because it negatively impacted his co-workers and went against Googles code of conduct. Pichai can be credited with

handling the situation very appropriately. He made sure that employees felt comfortable in the environment which they worked in. He also allowed employees to discuss any concerns they had about the culture in the workplace.

As I mentioned, these things are going to happen within companies and its more important to see what the leader and or company does to respond to events. I view this event as a blessing in disguise for Google. It was put under a lot of pressure and criticism from the media and the public. Ultimately Google became a stronger organization and Pichai a better leader. Through his different leadership styles, he was able to adapt and make some changes in the organization to prevent anything like this from happening again. This is why Google was awarded Glassdoor’s fifth best company to work at in 2018.