How managing at Google is different from almost anywhere else, according to HR head Laszlo Bock

Google has had a long and odd relationship with the whole idea of management.  In 2002, Larry Page and Sergey Brin turned the company into a "flat" organization, free of engineering managers. That plan lasted a few months: Page couldn't handle all the requests for help in making decisions and charting career paths.  Then in 2009, Google launched Project Oxygen, an inquiry into whether managers mattered at all. The conclusion? They did. But not in the same way they did for other companies.  ...