Leadership and productivity lessons from 16 years at Google

Executive overview

Staying impactful in a senior role requires deliberate design — of your time, your thinking, and your energy. Without intentional structure, calendars fill up, health habits slip, and deep work never happens.

The most important shift is from being busy to being impactful — and you can't manage what you don't measure.

Thinking days: scheduled deep work every six weeks

• One full day blocked every six weeks, managed by an executive assistant — not negotiable
• Structured around three pre-selected high-level questions, gathered over the prior six weeks
• Inputs (data, context) gathered beforehand; outputs are typically mind maps or scoping documents
• Used a coach session within the thinking day for added clarity
• Example output: a strategic discussion guide for a leadership offsite on culture and capability

Calendar as a management tool

• Executive assistant colour-codes the calendar across 9–10 categories (internal, external, ads, cross-functional, kids, thinking time, etc.)
• At the end of each quarter, reviews time allocation against priorities — a lead indicator, not a quota
• One calendar for work and personal life — avoids double-booking
• Goal is not the fullest calendar but the most impactful one

Radical candor and feedback

• Radical candor means being direct and honest, even when it stings
• Feedback that doesn't sting won't be heard or felt
• Effective feedback pairs the hard truth with genuine affirmation of strengths
• Receiving hard feedback as a gift requires trusting that the person cares about your development
• A boss who never challenges you is signalling they don't care enough to invest

Managing the inner critic

• A long-term coach helped reframe catastrophic thinking — not by suppressing it, but by accepting and deprioritising it
• Technique: name the inner critic voice, recognise its source (high standards), then consciously turn down the volume
• Visual metaphor: put the screaming voice on the back of the bus — you're still driving
• The critic keeps you hungry; unmanaged, it brings you down

Office hours for people development

• Two 30-minute open slots per week that anyone can book
• Used mostly for career conversations — goals, development plans, job decisions
• Generates one of the highest dopamine hits in the role: watching someone you hired become a director years later
• Actively tops up energy rather than draining it

Parenting logistics and presence

• Family runs on a multi-tab spreadsheet covering schedules, homework checkpoints, and logistics across three kids
• Presence over quantity: dedicated one-on-one time built into routine (school pickup, weekend sport, morning drives)
• North star: be the parent they call when something goes wrong — built through consistent availability, not perfect coverage
• Screen time treated as context-dependent, not inherently harmful

Health and habit formation

• Post-maternity leave health routines collapsed on return to work — recognised after six months
• Applied Atomic Habits principle: master the art of showing up, not perfection
• Practical hack: new Fitbit to gamify exercise; short walks scheduled into calendar gaps
• Self-compassion as strategy — phase of life matters; small consistent actions beat ambitious routines that fail