Google is facing a scaling problem. Scaling is not just limited to business functions such as marketing activities, but it's also about managing their employees as the number of staffs required will keep on increasing which surely would introduce a host of brand new problems.

Google's management is having a hard time in dealing with this aspect, evidently by the scaling back of their weekly town halls, internally categorized as "TGIF meetings", mostly known by the public as those quick fire chat Q&A sessions with management. The recent cancellations of many Google products and services were probably an indirect result of this too, it was also an attempt of scaling back. Its huge size must have exceeded the current limitations of their operation structure, unless some of its core policies and missions must be altered significantly. A few of these changes may have already been carried out, the hiring of an anti-union organization and the installing of internal web browser monitoring tool.

This begs the question though, when you have something that got scaled up to such an enormous size which inevitably would accompany with more unique and challenging chaotic scenarios, what are the possible approaches to resolve these situations in a harmony and effective way? The solutions are not easy and these problems are becoming increasingly common in our modern world. The same issues that were once very simple have upgraded themselves to become much more difficult to deal with and with many added layers of complexity.

I attended a recent startup event in Vietnam in which Mr. Nguyen Thanh Nam, chairman of Endeavor Vietnam, told the story of his personal experience in facing a similar challenge in managing a large number of people. The numbers were probably not at the same crazy level at Google's but the effective solution for him in the end was to go and live in some rural villages for a while where thousands of people manage to participate daily in a very large but well-behaved community and all in harmony.

The challenge facing with an increase of diversity is alignment. The greatest benefit of diversity is new innovations, but only if its chaotic nature can be managed by correct alignment. Without this anchoring element, things will quickly spiral out of control. To effectively aligning a massive group of people, this anchoring element must be based on basic core values or principles that naturally DO NOT or RARELY CHANGE over time. There won't be any consistent alignment if those values change too often or just cannot be applied effectively for long enough. I believe Google might be approaching it incorrectly. Some of the methods reported by the media seem very similar to censoring. That is not alignment, that is the equivalent of putting a dome structure over everyone. It would slowly create an environment that inhibits creativity limiting people's abilities. It's certainly an alternative method but just not a preferred one.

Correct alignment is a much better and more efficient method for the long game. Talents and technical skills can all change very quickly in modern time, what binds people together are the common mindsets and personality attributes that are always considered good under any environments and withstanding any degrees of change. This alignment is applied even to the management themselves, and not just to the engineers whom they manage, it is actually more critical at the top level. What is the Google's personna? There should be a mechanism in place for the management to detect when they are deviating too much from the anchoring alignment as well. What we are seeing at Google is probably an early sign of this deviation, or perhaps the values being used in aligning everyone together just do not have as much longevity?