How to get things done in a large organization
Matt Cutts shares what he’s learned from working at Google and the U.S. Government.
Office buildings (source: PublicDomainPictures via Pixabay)
The nature of work and how business gets done is rapidly changing in the digital age. In this presentation, Matt Cutts, acting director for the United States Digital Service and former software engineer at Google, reminds people it is possible to cut through the red tape at large organizations to get stuff done for the betterment of customers and end-users.
Highlights from Cutts’ presentation include:
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It’s crucial for large organizations to choose a North Star — a vision and reason for why they uniquely exist. This North Star informs the company’s strategies and goals. For example, at Google it was to organize the world’s information and make it accessible. Every project and effort by the people employed at Google was in service of this vision. Without this, employees are just reactive and working in a vacuum. (00:57)
Emotion plays a large role in the collective ability to get things done. Emotions, such as fear, can create obstacles and prevent an organization from accomplishing its goals. Strong negative emotions can make organizations risk averse, or create incentives for people to not want the responsibility of failure. The fear of risk ends up being worse than the actual risk. Trust and empathy, on the other hand, can lead to powerful results. (02:24)
Talking to your users is the most powerful hack you can deploy in the fight to get things done within large organizations. Veterans’ Affairs (VA) discovered there was a gap between its mission to deliver an exceptional customer experience and what veterans had to say about actually navigating the bureaucracy. But, by finally talking to veterans, it allowed the VA to take action in the service of its mission. (06:53)
You can see Cutts’ complete presentation in the video above.