Scaling People: Insights from Claire Hughes Johnson’s Book and My Experience at Google
I recently finished reading Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building by Claire Hughes Johnson, former COO of Stripe. This book emphasizes how to scale organizations, develop talent.
In this post, I’ll share my key learnings from the book and how they align with my practical experiences at Google.
1. Self-Awareness and Enabling Teams
Claire emphasizes that self-awareness is foundational for effective management. A leader must understand their own work style, motivations, and biases to better support their team. In my experience at Google, this was crucial when scaling teams and leading complex projects.
Operational Structure: Establishing a clear structure early on is critical. In fast-growing teams, leaders need to foster a culture of transparency and collaboration by clearly defining roles and responsibilities.
You have to give to scale up: As projects grow, it becomes impossible to know every detail. To scale effectively, you must empower your team to take ownership. At Google, I found that encouraging team members to make decisions, act quickly, and take accountability led to higher performance and better morale.
Hands-Off Leadership: When leaders keep their hands down in daily tasks, they can lift their heads up to focus on strategic vision and growth.
2. Clear and Consistent Communication
Claire’s book stresses the importance of consistent communication for maintaining alignment across teams. At Google, this was one of the pillars of success in scaling teams efficiently.
Over-Communicate: It’s better to over-communicate than to leave things unsaid. Both leaders and team members share the responsibility of staying updated and ensuring information flow. In my experience, frequent updates, clear status checks, and open discussion for feedback were critical to avoid silos.
Establish OKRs and QBRs: Setting clear goals through OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and conducting regular QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) ensures teams remain focused and aligned with the broader mission.
Also setting the process is critical as well.
3. Documenting the Vision
Claire emphasizes that defining and communicating foundational documents is essential to guide teams and maintain clarity.
Mission, Long-term Goals, and Operating Principles: I learned that having a well-documented mission and long-term goals is critical for guiding decision-making. At Google, articulating clear operating principles helped teams navigate complexity and make aligned choices.
Achievable Goals: Setting realistic goals aligned with the company’s broader objectives keeps teams focused. Clear individual contributions ensure collective success.
Balancing Leadership and Management: While setting a strategic vision is crucial, execution must follow with precision. I found that effective execution involves avoiding micromanagement. Normally what I will do is to ask my team member if they feel I’m too involved into the project. And I will support their decision.
4. Effective Decision-Making Frameworks
The book introduces Bezos’ decision-making frameworks that are practical for fast-paced environments. At Google, we used a similar approach to streamline processes and ensure rapid execution.
Type 1 and Type 2 Decisions:
Type 2 (Two-Way Door) Decisions: These are reversible decisions that should be made by small teams deep within the organization. At Google, we encouraged teams to make Type 2 decisions quickly, learn from them, and adjust as needed.
Type 1 (One-Way Door) Decisions: These are high-stakes, irreversible decisions that require careful analysis and senior-level input. We were mindful about analyzing these decisions thoroughly to minimize risks.
5. Building Positive Momentum
Creating positive momentum is a central theme in Claire’s approach, and it’s a critical driver of progress in any organization.
Drive Progress, Not Just Activity: Leaders should focus on creating a culture of progress, where positive momentum builds naturally rather than pushing teams to simply do more. At Google, I found that fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and recognition led to sustainable growth and higher productivity.
Exploration Over Lecturing: Effective leaders explore solutions collaboratively, asking questions and observing patterns instead of dictating answers. This approach led to stronger engagement and problem-solving within my teams.
Real-Time Metrics: Regular reviews of performance metrics and maintaining real-time dashboards improved efficiency and accuracy at Google, making it easier to adapt quickly and stay aligned.