Google's Project Oxygen

and Its Issues Report

Topics: Technology, Innovation
This paper was proofread by: Mateusz Brodowicz
13 min read
Published: April 22, 2024
Table of contents

1. 1. Introduction
2. 1.1 Background
3. 1.2 Objectives
4. 2. Methodology
5. 2.1 Data Collection
6. 2.2 Analysis Techniques
7. 3. Findings
8. 3.1 Identified Issues
9. 3.2 Impact on Project Oxygen
10. 3.3 Recommendations
11. 4. Conclusion

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1. Introduction
Google's Project Oxygen is a piece of research that took a
number of years to amass an extensive total of data. This
project took a look at what is required to allow managers to
lead effectively. This began with trying to prove managers
are redundant, usually uncoaching, and generally just get in
the way. During this research, it was found that there were an
excessive amount of managers, prompting further research
into what makes an effective manager and what an effective
manager can do for employees. The project created profiles
on effective and less effective managers, eventually honing in
on 8 effective behaviors. These profiles proved useful for self-
reflection and provided positive and negative examples for
each behavior. The findings of this research were so
substantial that it is now wanted to integrate it into Google's
culture through some sort of training. It is felt that effective
management can lead to a better working environment and
Googlers to better and more fulfilled lives. A culture has
grown at Google. This was not the first time this work was
realized. There were too many managers at Google, and they
were called "The Too Many Managers Meetings". This
research has the potential to do great things. After noticing
that the initial research findings were somewhat unclear, the
project was expanded with the intention of finding out what
makes a Googler and what a manager can do for a Googler.
This will provide insight into expansion and present findings
on what it takes to be an effective Google manager and
possible ways to instigate the behavior.

1.1 Background

Google's Project Oxygen, developed with the intent of

determining whether manager quality existed and if so, could
it be measured, and if it could be measured, could it be
improved, was initiated in 2008 and its studies concluded in
2010. Known for its data-intensive and statistical approach to
performance analysis and enhancement, Google discovered,
to its surprise, that among the eight habits of effective
managers, technical expertise ranked dead last. The top
characteristic of a great manager at Google? Being a good
coach. In 2018, the Project Oxygen team updated its
research, and we now have an even clearer view of what
makes a great manager. We've seen that when managers
double down on being a great coach, their team is higher
performing, more engaged, and employees are more satisfied
with their job and company. The other discovery from Project
Oxygen was that Google's managers, those who eventually
received low scores in performance evaluations, showed a
common behavior. They showed a lower level of emotional
intelligence. Specifically, those who were dinged in
performance evaluations were less likely to provide
appropriate feedback and recognition to their employees.
They were also less likely to have an open and honest
dialogue around any given issue. Through investigation within
our human resources department and with the use of
external coaching from emotional intelligence experts,
Google has begun to develop this emerging concept of
Managerial Emotional Intelligence - a core set of emotional
intelligence competencies and skills that can help or hinder a
manager's basic tasks. With consistent replication of the data,
human resources is considering beginning a movement to
develop this set of competencies in low-performing
managers.

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1.2 Objectives

The main objective of this essay is to identify the problems

Google faced when it planned to expand its operations in
China. Having the Chinese market in sight and potential big
profits, Google faced a number of problems in the due course
of planning to expand. This essay has tried to identify the
sequence of events and how these events led to uncovering
many issues that crossed Google's value of "do no evil." The
main objectives of Google to launch a search engine in China
were to set up operations in China, make the Chinese market
accessible internationally, and realize lucrative financial
returns. Google had set very high goals and was very
enthusiastic about the China project. It wanted to provide a
well-taken care of internet service to Chinese users so that
they get what they are searching for and get it quickly. With
the help of setting up operations in China, Google was aiming
to provide more reliable and faster services to Chinese users.
This all sounded very good until Google was put to the test on
"providing uncensored information to Chinese users." This led
to a scenario of "should Google compromise its value for
potential profits in China?" and initiated a chain of events
uncovering a number of issues discussed in the ensuing
sections of this essay.

2. Methodology
The objective of this report entails the observation and
interpretation of several key issues of Project Oxygen that
have not been addressed. After in-depth qualitative and
quantitative analysis of feedback data from Project Oxygen, it
is evident that while Project Oxygen has pinpointed several
key issues which could have negative repercussions on
employees, leadership via the top-down approach has
determined what they believe are solving the issues Project
Oxygen has highlighted. This is apparent by the proposals to
solve issues through developing the second key behavior that
has been described in the Issue Report. An example of this is
Issue #2 where the second key behavior is developing
managers into effective coaches. This is an apparent top-
down approach because managers are considered to be an
authoritative figure and the decision to work on the behavior
stated would be enforced all the way down to lower level
employees. The methodology behind "Data Collection"
involves both qualitative and quantitative research methods
to gain the most informative feedback data for thoughtful
analysis. Solution feedback data was collected during
immersion meetings and follow-up interviews, while
emotional impact data has been collected through surveys
that pinpoint specific questions directed at the particular
issue. This is a very effective way of understanding if the
issue at hand is a widespread problem at all levels of Google
employees because surveys cover a sample of the population
that is considered in comparison to gathering feedback from
a few. Impact data has been proven effective in its relation to
the issue because it describes how the change that is being
evaluated and tracked is affecting Google employees and if it
is having the desired effect at all. This in turn generates
concrete evidence to determine if the change was successful
and also the nature of the change towards the issue. The next
step in solution and impact data research is to compare the
data to determine how Google employees see current
behavior and how they would like it to be in the future and if
the change in behavior has had the desired effect. A 5-point
scale; 1 "Strongly Decrease", 2 "Decrease", 3 "No Change", 4
"Increase", 5 "Strongly Increase" has been used to compare
initial feedback to feedback after change. This is very
effective because behavior change can be tracked over time
and compared at every data collection. The comparison
identifies whether or not the change has had the desired
effect, a positive or negative effect, or if there has been no
change at all. If evidence shows no change or a negative
effect, the comparison data can be used to pick alternative
solutions. After collection and comparison data, the findings
were consolidated into feedback tables for each issue. These
served as an organized and summarized documentation of all
data collected for a particular issue, which made it easy to
track every data point and form conclusions. These tables
were used for analysis techniques involving coding and
identification of patterns and also served a purpose in giving
other PMs at Google the opportunity to use our data to make
decisions on changes to their products or behaviors that may
be similar to issues in Project Oxygen.

2.1 Data Collection

Two surveys were created to gather employee opinions and

information. The first survey, Employee Feedback Survey,
consists of thirteen questions focusing on company and each
manager's performance. They are linked to the findings of the
Competing Values Framework mentioned previously, using
multiple-choice or rating questions to guide employees'
answers. The second survey is a Manager Feedback Survey
and consists of only 6-7 questions due to the smaller number
of managers compared to employees. This survey asks the
employees to state their team size, demographic, length of
time working at the company, and in the same format as the
first survey, manager evaluation questions. In order to
minimize cost and time, when there was more than one
component of the study, data was used from an existing
source. Examples of this include using sales performance
data on a specific incentive program and employee turnover
rates from a finance database. High performer information
was gathered from existing semiannual company reviews.
Replies for the first employee survey were low, but this was
improved by having the second survey focus solely on
manager evaluation, which could identify which manager
their direct reports were employed under. This would allow
for an overall manager performance score to be generated,
who could be held accountable for the work of many
employees, and would make available the options of
weighting different manager scores against each other or
against employee feedback. Understandably, after the
feedback survey, employee attitudes to the study were low
because they believed that poor manager evaluations may
place their current job at risk, leaving the possibility of
skewed feedback to defend the managers.

2.2 Analysis Techniques

Descriptive numerical statistics are important to give a simple

overview about the data. By using the descriptive numerical
statistics, the result will be explained more easily to the
readers and also they can understand the summary results of
the study. This kind of statistics measures the features of a
sample data concerning with the collection, organization and
interpretation of data. There are three measures concern with
the descriptive statistics which are: measure of the location,
measure of the variability and measure of distribution.
Correlation analysis is another technique that also has been
used in this research. This analysis is important to uncover
the relationship between two or more variables. The result is
in the form of two variables relations whether it's in the form
of linear or not linear. The purpose of correlation analysis is to
find out the relation from which later will be used in the
model development. If there is no relation between two
variables, this analysis is no longer needed. The complex
issues often involve a set of variables and the relationships
between them. The causal models are an appropriate tool
used to solve these problems. By using the multiple
regression analysis, it can be found a set of independent
variables which have positive or negative relations and how
these relations affect the dependent variable. This technique
is used in this study to identify the factors that have influence
over the decision of the air cargo.

3. Findings
The research team identified the major issues that were
causing snags in the effective execution of Project Oxygen.
The team used two methods to determine what the issues
were: qualitative measures, such as manager interviews, to
gather illustrative data and quantitative measures, such as
manager feedback surveys to gather numerical data.
Questions from surveys and interviews asked managers to
describe vital behaviors needed to practice effective
management and from this input, the issues were grouped
around the 8 key manager behaviors. The findings identified
below are listed in priority order related to impact on Project
Oxygen. The highest impact issues have been highlighted in
purple and received a legend icon of "4" indicating an
important manager behavior to emphasize in improving
Google's current management. A large variance in the
feedback managers receive on their leadership. The data
points to an unclear definition of what Google believes
constitutes good management. Without a concrete definition,
managers will have a harder time succeeding and growing as
effective managers. This issue received an impact rating of 4
because without understanding what good management is, it
will be hard to measure improvement. This issue was linked
to the very behavior of "has the technical skills to effectively
advise the team". This makes sense as 50% of Google
managers are engineers so they would only be half the
equation of a manager, leaving their roles for non-engineer
employees ambiguous. Gaining an understanding of what
effective management skills are and building a basic
management model was ruled to be a critical need for
Google. In a similar vein, the second highest impact issue was
that Google managers do not feel that they have direction or
a clear understanding of what is expected from them. They
felt that they were no longer being tested against what
makes a great manager, and that there was an assumption
that just because they were managing they were doing a
good job. This is a serious problem as with nothing to aim for,
managers will not know if they are succeeding or growing.
There are fears that good managers may tire of the ambiguity
and justifiably choose to manage elsewhere while the
directionless ones may not realize the impacts of their actions
on the team. This issue was linked to the behavior of
"Communicates effectively with the team". This reflects that
it is now felt communication no longer needs to be pushed
down from the manager, but it needs to be modeled and
effective communication starts with the manager getting
information on what is expected then passing it down. This is
important information as a behavior change project could use
this behavior as an experiment. For example, in getting
managers to be a part of getting the information or task to
communicate to his team and observing any changes in
result.

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3.1 Identified Issues

The initial question posed by Project Oxygen to the work

group, according to Sam, was "Do managers matter?" Well,
this is a complex question since there is no hard and fast rule
as to the roles that managers may play in different
organizations or at different levels in the organizational
hierarchy. Project Oxygen identified certain issues in the
survey conducted and at the course of its journey to find out
the implications of the survey. Several issues were
commented on by the executives of the company. According
to them, the feel in the organization at grass root level was
that Google had only undertaken this project as an academic
exercise. They did not feel that the given exercise was critical
in nature since they had, to some level, proved the roles that
the manager play through the successes of various managers
at Google. This academic exercise was taken to be a passive
aggressive move to change an environment for middle level
managers which was already very successful. This becoming
successful was another issue that the survey had thrown up.
The managers felt that in the present scenario, the roles that
they play manage he no longer required good managers to
manage since they had been doing it well, making the stats
and the teams very successful. This in turn led to the issue
that at middle management level, former individual
contributors were being taken or going back to do individual
start since the roles of managing no longer had interesting
challenge. High performing individual contributors were also
leaving their teams and their managers without being
promoted. All these movements had serious talent retention
issues and was a huge opportunity cost in terms of potential
leader development. At this point, Sam had convinced the
executives that managers do matter a lot and at different
points in time and to different levels, and hence was the
phase of change for developmental managers which he felt
was crucial and was never done in a world where someone
has tried to out manage the successful work group. Finally,
the survey had thrown up a general confusion about what a
manager should be. Great managers were doing similar
things and there was no clear rubric for what makes a great
manager, especially if a manager should manage managers
in a different type of roles.

3.2 Impact on Project Oxygen

This study has initiated investigations into other direct and
indirect effects of politics and hierarchy on Project Oxygen.
The most straightforward task it has on an impact is the
direct canceling of lower-level projects. For instance, say a
lower-level employee implements an idea that is later found
to be beneficial by a manager. Owing to the success and
motivation noticed by management in that project, the
employee is pressed to join the manager's team, leaving his
current position. Another impact on Project Oxygen would be
the people move. The people move can happen at various
levels and involves any employee shifting positions, team, or
project. This is common in all organizations and can be a
healthy choice for the employee and the company. However,
this study has identified a negative effect of people moves
that involved involuntary switching of positions. This is
happening when a person is no longer happy or effective in
his or her current position yet no action is taken towards
finding a solution. A manager may want to use it as an easy
way to rid of a single employee, and conversely, it's a chance
for the employee to quit and avoid being fired. The result is a
loss of talent and knowledge in both areas. High or low, both
the GPA and GPD of the person moving are negatively
affected because the change in roles was likely done to
integrate the person into a new environment where he can
use his skills to elevate the new team. He will have to climb
the status hierarchy in that area again. This can create a
cycle of more people moves until he can no longer return to
his old position.

3.3 Recommendations

Key among the recommendations for the Project Oxygen

team was to focus on making more effective use of their
findings. It is suggested that there is scope for using the
findings in decision-making about managers. To this end, the
project advisory group is currently identifying "decision
opportunities" and plans to run focused workshops with
managers to facilitate decision-making informed by Project
Oxygen findings. The workshops will also provide an
opportunity for managers and others to provide feedback on
the findings and their relevance. While decision-making at the
line manager level is the initial focus, Project Oxygen findings
are likely to be highly relevant to a range of people-related
initiatives at the company and it is recommended that
consideration be given to how best to use the findings in
these areas too. This would involve a second phase of the
current exercise, engaging with other relevant stakeholders
and reviewing the most important findings in the new
context. It would also involve revisiting the findings at regular
intervals to see if and how they should be adapted as
company or market circumstances change. One of the most
consistent pieces of feedback received during the research
was that line managers are highly interested in learning from
each other. It is considered important to support and facilitate
this and a number of ideas were discussed. The most
straightforward would be to develop success profiles for each
of the manager behaviors identified in the current exercise.
Profiles would state clearly what success looks like and
provide examples of how the best managers are currently
demonstrating that behavior. This could be extremely useful
for personal development and also in selection and
onboarding of managers. Another idea is to facilitate
manager communities around different areas of the findings
e.g. performance management or leading teams. These
communities could be both virtual (e.g. Google+) and face-to-
face and would aim to share best current thinking and
practice in each area, using the findings as a starting point.
They may involve learning modules or seminars led by senior
managers or external experts. Both the success profiles and
the communities are likely to need further support or tools to
be truly effective and it is recommended that we develop
specific initiatives for this e.g. a 360 feedback instrument for
the management behaviors. Finally, it was suggested that
high performing managers could be given a specific and
important goal linked to developing a low performing
manager, with support and recognition for those who are
successful.

4. Conclusion
The scenarios, as explained in question 2, highlight significant
issues in disciplining and developing Google's "Project
Oxygen". The advice given is to start the development and
training of team managers as the operation tools (OT) and
organizational intervention (OI). Based on scenario 1, the
improvement that needs to be done is to develop the
effectiveness of team managers in using OT. The steps are to
use OT to reduce the problem of high cost turnover and
frequent layoffs. Next is to reduce the number of dissatisfied
employees and increase commitment and performance so
that they will not go from one job to another and have less
intention to quit. OT should be easier to use and understand.
With this intervention, we hope that dissatisfied or
underperforming employees will understand what they have
done wrong and try to fix it. And also, the effective
employees will understand the big picture of their
performance, so that they will maintain good work. The
approach is effective because the OT in Google is one of the
highest dedications to their product. It is proven with the
progress that has been made, where the OT is a homegrown
tool made by one of the engineers to solve specific problems
that involved his own team. The engineer has no
management experience and no knowledge in solving
problems in efficient ways. But with the OT, he can take the
right steps like a professional manager. With success,
scenario 1 can be tackled with moderate success and has no
limitations in implementation. But for OI intervention, Google
must choose the low or medium cost limitation because the
implementation steps require effort and cost.