I learned much more about the concept and practicality behind their 20% time by reading this post, very informative and opinionated.

I had written a previous post regarding this subject and Google’s performance management styles, and this post even further stresses their unique yet effective approach.

It’s very interesting how they use a rule that works implicitly as a culture guideline to encourage the innovation and creativity of the brilliant minds that they employee. It also states, “Google culture, much like Microsoft in the early 90s, has a very strong, competitive work ethic, and peer pressure and pride drive many people to work hard”, showing how their workers seem to get an emotional return for working hard at Google. Their employees are obviously successful academics, which can explain why they seem to have a “resistance” to hierarchy because they’ve come so far on their own and having degrees can be taken as a status symbol. Thus, how Google created an environment that provides much freedom and accommodations to their employees, a culture that nurtures the innovations they are capable of, and intrinsically motivates them, is truly impressive and a performance management model to strive for.