In an effort to make their employees eat healthier, especially for between meal snacks, Google redesigned their snack kitchens. The Good: Make healthy food prominent, downplay the candy.

From those experiments, they've learned the hard way how some changes are better received than others. I don't think any company has studied lunch time behaviors nearly as much as Google. Unfortunately, when given no choice, people often rebel. If you want to change the behavior of your employees, it can be tempting to try to force a choice upon your people. Lesson #2: Don't take away choice, but do reduce friction for desired options However, when you make it an experiment, now you need to measure the results and actively make a decision to keep, kill, or alter the program. It's easy to think once you roll out a policy, your work is done. Measure the resultsĪnother underrated aspect of making a new perk, policy, or investment in your team an experiment is that it changes the mindset of those rolling it out. When they then stopped giving out the free credits, Bock reported they had no complaints. If they had made it a permanent perk and then eliminated it, you can imagine a non-zero amount of their 50,000+ employee workforce would have complained. However, each time Bock reported, 'we explained it was a test, so there was never any expectation that each month you'd get a free $25.' They gave Googlers $25 to try it, and a number of times thereafter.

One such example was when Google developed Google Shopping Express.

When it comes to hiring, the crowd is smarter than any individual.

You must measure your managers against the results you want.

Consider these lessons below as battle-tested, scientific approaches you can apply at your workplace at your discretion. Any leader can benefit from some of Laslzlo Bock's Rules. However, the exceptions shouldn't prevent you from learning and applying some of the amazing lessons and research shared in this book. As you might expect, there were a number of things that felt unique to Google (i.e.- few of us have multi-million dollar stock grants we can offer employee #10,000+), or seem like ideas that could backfire (like Chapter 10's subject, 'Pay Unfairly' leading to this scandal). I recently read Laszlo Bock's new book, 'Work Rules: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead'. Yet, it's well worth reflecting on how you can take parts of what they do, and adapt them to fit your company. You shouldn't aspire to be exactly like any other company, even mega-successes like Google.

Laszlo bock