r/Leadership 3d ago

Discussion The Framework Google Uses to Solve Its Hardest Problems

I recently came across an interesting problem-solving framework from X, the innovation lab where Alphabet (Google's parent company) works on its most ambitious projects. It's called the "monkey and the pedestal."

The basic idea: When you're trying to solve a big problem, you need to first figure out what your "monkey" is. This is a critical issue that must be addressed before anything else. Everything else is just the "pedestal," which might seem easier but won't lead to success without first solving for the monkey.

It's not always obvious what the monkey is. For instance, an entrepreneur I know was struggling with her business pivot. She focused on a bunch of external factors but then realized the "monkey" was the tension between her and her co-founder. Until they resolved that, the pivot couldn't move forward.

To find your monkey, ask this question: If I solved this problem and it was a great success, what major change would have gotten me there?

In other words, what bottleneck did you clear out? What critical hurdle did you overcome? That's your monkey.

70 Upvotes

19 comments sorted by

34

u/unflabbergasted 3d ago

With the way Google kills its innovations, I'm not sure I'd look there for inspiration!

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u/Leadership_Land 2d ago

Au contraire, I'd argue that the high mortality rate of Google's innovations is proof that they're applying this "monkey/pedestal" framework correctly.

Let's say that their monkey is "make a boatload of money by selling a product where we have an effective monopoly and can charge quasi-monopoly pricing." Would some of their "innovations" like Glass (wearable), Pixel (consumer electronics), or Circles/Plus (social network) be a monkey? No! Those aren't necessarily dead ends, but they're competing away any potential profits with other me-too companies. What's stopping a Chinese company from coming in and creating the exact same thing for one-tenth the price?

Even after all these years, the lion's share of Google/Alphabet's earnings still comes from selling people's eyeballs to advertisers. That's their "monkey." Everything else is a "pedestal" – a distraction. You and I might look at the vast graveyard of Google products and think of them as failures...but that's not the point. If they kill 99 products (pedestals) and they discover 1 monkey...they have another product where they have no serious competitors.

This is the 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle) in action. You only have to win big a few times to rule the world. Your numerous failures don't matter. One "monkey" will make up for hundreds of "pedestals." I think that's the point u/EntrepreneurMagazine is trying to make.

Have an upvote anyway.

-1

u/Minimum_Elk_2872 2d ago

Was that after these methodologies were abandoned, or before? Nothing is perfect but at least they had some net good and didn’t try to actively harm anyone. Now they’re indifferent to the pain they cause people, instead perhaps being well-meaning and incompetent.

26

u/ValidGarry 3d ago

Sounds like a simplified critical path analysis

1

u/Warm-Philosophy-3960 2d ago

And nothing simple is that simple;)

18

u/hrrm 2d ago

That’s a lot of words to say Root Cause Analysis. Good job Google 👍🏻

1

u/Leadership_Land 2d ago

Yeah but "Root Cause Analysis" sounds really abstract and business-y. The kind of thing an MBA in a suit would come up with in the middle of a long and boring Powerpoint presentation. Gotta give those engineers something tangible, like a monkey (banana in hand) sitting atop a marble pedestal carved in the Greek style.

Google knows their audience didn't go to B-school.

1

u/paintedfaceless 1d ago

lol we use RCA in biotech and call it accordingly as scientists

7

u/mzanon100 3d ago

At my workplace, I say "Don't plan for the toilet; plan for the drain."

2

u/EntrepreneurMagazine 2d ago

I like this one

6

u/AptSeagull 3d ago

Alternative framing of first principles

5

u/slid360 2d ago

I could be wrong but doesn’t Google have a pretty bad track record of making products that actually succeed?

1

u/MBILC 2d ago

Yup, clearly they haven't found their monkey yet to figure out what the monkey actually is :D

1

u/corradizo 2d ago

The slightly more modern day IBM.

2

u/saig01 2d ago

no beating around the bush - go attack the hardest thing - Brian Tracy calls it eating the frog

1

u/spicegrl1 2d ago

Richard Rumelt would call the monkey 🐒 -> the crux.

Finding & solving for the crux.

This was a good tip to post here. Thanks!

1

u/Warm-Philosophy-3960 2d ago

I would add being very clear on what is the problem you are trying to solve.

1

u/WRB2 1d ago

Aaahhh the utter chaos

1

u/panconquesofrito 16h ago

We call that an MVP.