Google's former engineering chief explains why his best meetings happen while throwing punches at his chief of staff

Douglas Merrill

Douglas Merrill is the former engineering chief of Google who now finance software runs startup ZestFinance.
Speaking to Business Insider, the 49-year-old says his best business meetings often take place in unorthodox settings.
Merrill talks shop with his top team while sparring in the boxing ring or doing a cardiovascular workout in the gym, and he thinks it can be incredibly productive.
The other thing that marks him out as a CEO, he says, is a strict reading schedule of math books, history books, and fantasy novels.
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When you picture a C-suite executive at work, making decisions and thrashing out strategy, where do you picture them? In all likelihood, it's in an office.

Yet for Douglas Merrill, Google's former chief information officer and the CEO of finance software startup ZestFinance, his most productive meetings take place in less orthodox spaces — and he thinks it's the thing that marks him out from other tech leaders.

"I often find that many of my best one-on-one meetings take place in the gym," he tells Business Insider.

"I work on a treadmill desk; I work out pretty much every day. I exercise relatively constantly. That's not because I'm trying to be younger than I am, but because I find being in the gym clarifies my mind a little bit."

eric schmidt

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google during Merrill's tenure, is known to favor meetings in which people comment as selectively as possible so colleagues can be sure what they're saying is important. But Merrill's gym-based meetings, by their very nature, tend to be more interpersonal.

"My chief of staff and I do cardio kickboxing and sparring together, so we just meet while we're doing that," he explains. "My chief operating officer and I also do cardio together, so we often meet. It's sort of organically worked out that we're talking about work, and that's cool.

"I usually try not to force someone to show up at the gym [for a meeting]. It's usually a little more organic than that. Obviously, we're sensitive about what we talk about, but it's just grown into a useful place where nobody's getting distracted by anything."

Merrill's 'rote' reading schedule

In addition to his gym-based meetings, Merrill adheres to what he calls a "really rote" reading schedule to keep his mind sharp when not in the office.

"I'll read a math book, followed by a history book, followed by some young adult vampire book," he says of his routine, which he has stuck to for around a decade.

"Usually it'll take me about a week to read the math book, and a week to read the history book; and a day to read the fantasy novel, and I just rotate between them, because I find that each one sort of structures my mind a little bit.

"Getting math is really important around here, I find history compelling, and the young adult book just represents the fact that, every now and then, my brain just wants to switch off for a bit."

Merrill adds that his reading habits aren't as unusual as you might think.

"I used to think I was unusual in doing that, but I've talked to a bunch of CEOs at major banks, and some variant of that [reading routine] is pretty common, which I thought was interesting."

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