Schmidt is describing an organization that exemplifies many of the most forward-thinking management values: empowerment, trust, engagement, alignment. And very much to his credit, he does it without using any of those buzzwords. (Not that buzzwords are always bad. There’s nothing wrong with talking about, say, transparency, for example.) People are going to do what they do. A company that can actually fill positions with people who actively want to do the things the job requires, who were going to perform those tasks anyway–that company has a tremendous advantage.
Of course, it takes leadership to build that kind of organization.
Even more difficult than building that kind of organization, is converting an existing one into that kind of organization.
The basic metaphor for large organizations in the early to mid 20th century was the factory, where you define the task as generically as possible and then hire people to fill that task.
The basic metaphor for places like Google is biological, with different people filling the niche that they’re well adapted to. It’s difficult to convert a factory into a well-balanced ecosystem, without somewhere in the middle of the conversion having a falling-apart-factory.
This is, I expect, part of why companies like Google get built from the ground up, typically.
An interesting perspective from a Facebook employee “Engineering Management & Organizations” has some good reading too.
http://algeri-wong.com/yishan/