Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead book club questions

1. 1.

   Bock argues managers should lose unilateral authority over hiring and pay. What would that require culturally, and where would it produce the most resistance?

2. 2.

   Google found that interview performance had low correlation with job performance in many roles. How should that finding change how you hire?

3. 3.

   Which of Project Oxygen's eight management behaviors do you see most consistently modeled by effective managers you know? Which is most often missing?

4. 4.

   Bock emphasizes radical transparency about business strategy. Where have you seen that work well, and where have you seen it backfire?

5. 5.

   If you applied the same analytic rigor to your organization's people decisions as it applies to its product or financial decisions, what would you want to measure first?

6. 6.

   Nudging through defaults is powerful but also paternalistic. Where is that tradeoff acceptable and where does it become manipulation?

7. 7.

   Google was in a specific talent market — highly competitive, with employees who had strong outside options. How much of what Bock describes is transferable to different labor market conditions?

8. 8.

   What does it cost, politically and operationally, to implement calibration panels and peer feedback? Is the cost worth the benefit in every context?

9. 9.

   Bock describes giving employees significant freedom to define how they work. What is the failure mode of that approach, and when does it break down?

10. 10.

    Google's employee surveys measured manager quality and shared results with employees. Would that practice change management behavior at organizations you know?

11. 11.

    The book was written in 2015. What has changed at Google since then, including reported employee relations issues, that would update or complicate Bock's account?

12. 12.

    Bock argues top performers should get disproportionate rewards. What are the risks of that philosophy for team cohesion and organizational culture?

How to run the discussion

• Pick six to eight, not all of them. An hour of real discussion covers fewer questions than anyone expects, and racing the list is what makes a book club feel like homework.
• Open with what people noticed, not what they concluded. Asking for a verdict first hardens opinions before anyone has heard each other.
• Let the disagreement run. The questions below that split a room are the ones worth the time; the ones everyone answers the same way can be skipped.
• Ask the quiet person a specific question. A direct, narrow question is far easier to answer than an open invitation to contribute.