The Google Way

Introduction: A Management Breakthrough

Beginning shortly after World War I, Ford and General Motors created the large modern corporation, with its financial and statistical controls, mass production, standardization, scientifically organized assembly lines, and autonomous divisions. By the 1960s, mass distribution had created the consumer society, with its system of credit sales, self-service stores, media networks, mass media ad campaigns, brands, and international products.

In the 1980s, the Toyota Motor Corporation was the archetype of an industrial company focused on product quality combined with a corporate culture of continuous refinement. Today, Google is the company that is reinventing management methods: the way people work, how organizations ...