Google’s “Think 10x Bigger” Approach: When Does It Fit?

#GoogleMethodology #ThinkBigger Rigid thinking is innovation’s greatest enemy. To break through it, Schmidt and Larry Page often challenged engineers in Google product-development meetings by saying, “You’re not thinking big enough.” Later, they felt that phrase was not strong enough and changed it to “Make this idea ten times bigger.” Finding ways to think bigger is therefore one of Google’s important principles for creating an innovative environment. When a Google team decides whether to pursue an idea, it usually asks several questions: First, could this idea affect hundreds of millions, or even billions, of people? Second, does it offer a distinctive technical insight? Finally, could the proposed approach become feasible in the near future? An idea that fully meets all three requirements is relatively mature. Take Google’s balloon-based internet project: it proposed suspending a device the size of a hot-air balloon in the sky to deliver wireless broadband to users on the ground. Other companies might regard it as a flight of fancy, but inside Google it was considered a relatively mature proposal. But if you think big and cannot deliver, is that not just daydreaming? Many ideas look like daydreams to ordinary companies. Google, however, would never ridicule that imagination. To build a car that uses one-tenth less gasoline, you only need to modify an existing design. To design a car that travels 500 kilometers on one liter of gasoline, you have to start over and rethink how to build a car from scratch. This kind of breakthrough innovation is what Google’s engineers pursue, and it is central to the company’s competitiveness. At Google, the fear is not that you cannot do it, but that you cannot imagine it. --- Robin: “Google becomes a great company by encouraging employees to expand their imagination. Could your product affect one billion people? It encourages you to rethink and redesign, pursuing innovations that achieve tenfold breakthroughs or more, rather than just 10% or 20% improvements.” Robin: “Google’s approach does not fit every situation. Small startup teams, especially, need to find a suitable entry point. Think too broadly from the outset and it becomes hard to start small. Fundraising in Taiwan generally requires some concrete results. But if you want to raise money for your project internationally, Google’s way of thinking can be useful.”