Is Your Workplace Like Your Family?
Google CEO Larry Page thinks great places to work should be like a family.
Stop!
I hear a lot of you out there beginning to shudder and think to yourselves “Good God! I hope NOT like MY family”.
So, what makes Page equate work to family life? In one sense, he is absolutely right. The workplace has been modeled on the family. You can read about how that works in the book “Don’t Bring It to Work: Breaking the Family Patterns that Limit Success”.
Here is how it goes.
We have parents at home and bosses at work who can tell us when we are on track or not. We have co-workers who are often like our siblings; you know the lazy sister who got you to do her chores for her, or the joking clown of a brother who made you wince with his bad jokes at the worst of times.
Think about it, we got allowances; we get salaries. We got time outs; we get performance improvement plans. We got to celebrate milestones at home; most work places give the opportunity to celebrate birthdays or best practices.
Now, I’ve been to Google in Mountain View and I honestly thought I had died and gone to workplace heaven. There was fabulous organic food everywhere you looked and my host assured me no money ever changes hand no matter how much you eat.
There was a place to book a massage, a laundry facility, and volleyball courts (and like Camelot, I really believe it only rains at night when everyone is asleep). Everyone was pleasant and helpful.
If this is what family means, bring it on!
However, in “Don’t Bring It to Work: Breaking the Family Patterns that Limit Success” there is a caution about seeing work and family as the same.
First of all, while one is connected through genetics and the other through economics, one is forever, the other not really. You can have ex-bosses and ex-co-workers; you CANNOT have ex-parents and ex-siblings. Sure, you can have a mother or father who drives you crazy and you do not see very often, or siblings you send a card to at Christmas and let it go at that.
So, Mr. Page, I suggest you consider Google a wonderful community, a fabulous connected community and leave the family to the family. Although……I bet you would be a great dad to all of us!!
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