By Mark O’Neill

One of the things I like about Google is the company policy of allowing their employees one day a week to work on company-related projects that they have a personal interest in. This is apparently how Gmail was created. How many companies do you know that allow their employees this much creative freedom?

Sometimes all you need to kick-start your pet project is a laptop but Bharat Mediratta writes in the New York Times that if you want to change something which will affect the entire company, you need to form a “grouplet”.

With no budget and no decision-making authority, you’d be forgiven for thinking that forming grouplets is just a waste of time. But Bharat shows in his article that the only thing a grouplet really needs to succeed is a passion in the idea and the power to persuade fellow co-workers to come on board.