9 Lessons You Can Learn From Google's Innovation Culture

Google, the tech giant and undisputed leader in search engine market share, owes its success to a determination to find simple solutions to common problems. Its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, recognized the lack of organization on the web in the early days, and they built an algorithm to rank search results, using the number of links and their importance. Google has continued to innovate, with a company-wide innovation strategy - its Nine Pillars of Innovation - guiding staff creativity. These include recognizing that innovation comes from anywhere, putting the user first, aiming to be ten times better, and making failure a part of successful innovation. In addition, Google embraces open innovation, encourages its employees to spend 20% of their work time pursuing passion projects, and seeks feedback to improve its offerings. However, Google is not afraid to actively manage its innovation projects, setting high expectations and making the tough decisions necessary to avoid pouring resources into under-performing innovations.