The Learnings

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit a Brazilian university and meet some future professionals in technology. While they were eager to hear about Google Cloud, my primary goal was to share with them the biggest learnings from my career path.?

Among the many things I discussed, such as the importance of building your network, learning from diverse perspectives, and always honoring your promises, there is one lesson that stands out above the rest: make decisions with data and information on your side. This isn't just about accessing technology, but also about gathering insights from the people you work with.

One common misconception about leadership is that leaders only care about results and don't want to be "bothered" with problems. The truth is quite the opposite. Leaders need to know what's happening at all levels of an organization. Without a complete picture, we risk seeing only one side of the story. This is where communication becomes crucial—not micromanaging, but ensuring that the right information flows both ways.

I once read about “The Iceberg of Ignorance”, a concept that Sidney Yoshida, a Japanese executive, has been calling attention to since 1989, and it can still be applied nowadays. He observed that when communication is ineffective, senior executives are only aware of 4% of the problems or improvements within a company, while 96% of employees hold essential information. Despite this, there often isn’t a culture that encourages sharing.

The first thing you might ask yourself is: Why don't teams talk about this among executives? Well, one thing I've noticed as I've been in contact with leaders in different industries and different sizes of companies is that in many places there's not a culture of sharing. And sometimes it starts with the managers themselves. If you're not leading by example and giving clear direction to your teams, they may not understand the real importance of this communication channel. If they do not have it as a practical reference, they cannot create this same environment within their staff.?

Another thing is to not only have this continuous learning space between colleagues, but also, a safe environment where people can suggest, give feedback and say what is bothering them. As I read more about the concept, the more I meet people who say they don't share their problems with leaders out of fear, out of retaliation, out of not being heard or understood, so that the only way they get information to the top is as a last resort when the team can't really solve it.?

Then we come back to the top of the iceberg, with managers not having enough time, resources and information to make better decisions or to help the team to solve the problems. This leads to a disconnect, where leaders lack the time, resources, and information to make informed decisions, creating frustration and poor performance.

I’ve seen firsthand how this can be addressed. Being humble, practicing active listening and being close to peers can generate an invisible but powerful effect. At Google Cloud, where I lead over many people across Latin America, spanning different time zones, languages, and cultures, managing information is key. I have constantly worked on these soft skills by creating spaces for knowledge sharing, peer-to-peer updates, live meetings, one-page presentations, but most importantly by empowering leaders to be the messengers of good and bad news. And sometimes a one-page presentation with the right information can help an entire team working asynchronously better than a one-hour meeting.

As you can see, information is a reflection of reality. It's important to understand it and read the story it's telling you, whether it's in a chart, in a spreadsheet, or in text. If you have half the information or half the context, do you feel confident in making a decision? I can give you an example from everyday life to illustrate this idea: Try to imagine how you could choose the best hotel for your vacation or a great school for your children without doing some research beforehand to compare, bargain, and come to an agreement.?

I truly believe that when we share knowledge and information, we break through the big obstacle (the iceberg) or any other obstacle to make things clear. This is the message I wanted to share with the students during my recent lecture. Working with technology goes beyond mastering the tools; it requires tapping into our human side. By expressing this point of view out loud to the audience, some of them might help me spread the message that it's not good to rely on the void of lack of information to fill your expertise (or your life).