My Top 10 Lessons from 20 Years at Google

I’ve been at one company for twenty years, and once again, I have proven myself to be deliciously old-fashioned. Who does that nowadays? Me, I do.?

“Why have you stayed?,” people ask me almost every day. Multiple times I looked around for my next career opportunity, and I always found it at Google. Had even one or two things been different -- a manager who didn’t see my potential, a more intriguing external offer, a life partner who didn’t support me -- and I might have left. But through hard work, opportunity and sheer luck, I’ve stayed.?

So in honor of 20 years, here are my top 10 takeaways in brief. May you learn these faster than I did.

1. Careers are long. We work on average for a good thirty to fifty years. We can afford some patience when this week’s or next month’s project goes sideways.
2. Corollary: Everyone wants to be promoted. Everyone. All the time. Get used to it and constantly invest in your people.
3. Sexy projects burn hot and flame out. Enjoy them, but protect your heart when inevitably the breakup occurs.?
4. The least sexy work lasts forever. If you make that your niche and keep finding the interesting problems, you’ve got job stability and marketability for years.
5. Most people can be won over with respect. Pure and simple.
6. Except the toughies. 5% of people are just tough. Find the people they like (if it’s not you) and route everything through them. That’s another way to respect people.
7. Respect = listening to people and recognizing their value. Do it everyday, all the time, and that will be the basis of the work culture you create.
8. Treating people well is the easiest thing to do and has the most enduring value of anything you’ll do in your career. This doesn’t mean giving them everything they want; it means showing them that you respect them and their value. See #7.
9. Everyone is “people”. Everyone. If you make exceptions or play favorites, people will remember and not in a good way -- sometimes even the people who were the favorites. I don’t care if some leadership books recommend this tactic. If you have to call it a tactic, it probably has a downside.
10. Careers are long. We work for a good thirty to fifty years. Your reputation follows you the whole time. Make it count.

Extra Credit: If you do the above and stay long enough, your team might get you a custom bobblehead. If you've got the best team ever, of course!

If you want more in-depth stories from my career, the e-book of The Adventures of Women in Tech is on sale now. Available at Amazon or other e-book sellers.