Author | James Whittaker
Translator | Liu Zhiyong, Li Dongmei
Planning & Editing | Natalie
Source | AI Frontline (ID: ai-front)
Introduction: The author James Whittaker is a former Microsoft engineer who talked about how Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella tried to save Microsoft from the loopholes and countless Difficulties.
Tracing the source
In the 1990s, Microsoft, led by Bill Gates, was a fast-moving, ambitious, technology-driven company with a strong capitalist identity. At that time, Microsoft, like a beast, was the leader among many competitors. For Microsoft, its partners are awe-inspiring, competitors are afraid, and users love and hate it. At Microsoft, from high-level leaders to individual contributors, everyone is ambitious, and the belief in winning is flowing everywhere in the company. In the 1990s, working at Microsoft was like entering the top of the pyramid, and personal wealth was accumulated. They all know that Microsoft at the time was invincible.
To answer the question “What is the experience of working at Microsoft?”, the only simple answer is: “Which era did you ask Microsoft?” I witnessed the company’s transformation in the ups and downs of Microsoft’s career. In an era, each era is deeply inspiring in its own unique way, but it is tragically flawed. When Microsoft once again struggled to reinvent itself, the future of Microsoft shrouded in the past haze.
In the 21st century, Microsoft under the leadership of Steve Ballmer is almost exactly the opposite of Microsoft in the era of Gates. The so-called Cheng Xiao Xiao defeated Xiao He, Microsoft’s monopoly position for its harvest of fame and fortune and the endorsement of the endorsement also buried the bane, the US Department of Justice issued a judgment that made Microsoft scarred. Ballmer era of Microsoft to sellBe guided, but also be cautious. As Google catches up, what Microsoft can do is keep a close eye on its own Windows products and firmly control the core technology. Microsoft has neglected many imaginative and innovative technologies, resulting in brain drain, stock price stagnation, customer boredom, and even missing the next three technology trends (or at least not catching up): network, cloud computing and mobile. It was a desperate era. Although Microsoft was still profitable, its situation plummeted because it could not extract new oxygen.
The Wheel of Time brought us to the present under the leadership of Satya Nadella. Nadella gave up the development strategy of the two former CEOs, eliminated all odds, revived Microsoft, and brought it back to its peak. Today Microsoft is no longer a technology and sales-driven company. Nadella has begun to transform the company into a culture-driven enterprise, and this transformation has solved some historical problems. More generally, if the company is as full of people who are chasing after the name, how can the company develop towards a new era?
Microsoft CEO Nadella
Nadella’s expectations for the new Microsoft are well known, and people are aware of this in compulsory training within the company. He urged Microsoft to form a corporate culture of “mind and eager to learn” rather than a “self-righteous” corporate culture. He warned Microsoft to stay away from “cure thinking,” and hired a group of consultants and evangelists (including a consultant who really served as a cultural official for three years) to help the company transform into a “developmental thinking” business.
Even if the road ahead is hard, Nadella knows that this is a must-have. During his long-term tenure, he experienced the influence of Gates and Ballmer’s management style. He also witnessed the whole process of his corporate culture from initial development to final formation and finally to the end of the road. Imagine watching a child you love grow up and live the look that you least want him to be in private, and you still don’t fully understand his situation. What kind of feeling is this?
Nadra and the oldThe era of Microsoft’s open confrontation defaults to the existence of the shadows that Gates and Ballmer left for Microsoft. They have all left Microsoft, but their influence still exists. Nadella did her best not to put this issue openly on the table, but this move was counterproductive. When he concealed the corporate culture of “self-righteousness”, people know who he is insinuating. So when the solidification thinking reappears, it will be blamed on this corporate culture.
Gates and Ballmer are the products of an era, and subsequent successors are hard to find. Both of them are knowledgeable and Bogutong. They are convinced that there are no embarrassing academic problems that can stump them. They even think that no expert analysis can be more prescient than them, and no competitors are strategically opposed to them. They are skilled in quick decision making and employee management. However, if you simply attribute the screaming, on-the-spot dismissal, and the similar throwing of chairs to “the passion of the leader,” then ignore a more important question: this behavior will go up, and this trend will also wave. Not going.
If you want Microsoft people to discuss what a bad manager is, then you have to set aside a long time to listen to their complaints.
Time is fast-forward to this day, we have not been able to name the original initiator. People struggled in the old habits of the past but could not pull the heroes of the past into this drowning. Nadella’s discussion of culture within the company is reminiscent of a southern mayor standing under the statue of Rebert E. Lee denying racism. It is difficult for us to get rid of the ruins left over from the corporate culture, because this kind of thing has continued.
Annotation: Rebert E·Lee, January 19, 1807~ October 12, 1870, often referred to as General Li, American general, educator, the most of the Union States (South Army) during the Civil War An outstanding general, and commanding the coalition army as the commander-in-chief, won the reputation of a generation of famous. After the war, he actively promoted reconstruction and became a university president in his later years. General Lee maintains the image of the representative of the Union and the image of an important educator.to date. In 2017, the far-right organizations and supporters who pursued white supremacism (also known as white racism) took to the streets to dismantle the statue of General Lee, sparking a massive conflict.
Struggling to save yourself
People who grew up under the malformed management style of Microsoft still have huge rights and found the law of preservation under the wings of Gates. (Balmer finds the right time to retreat, and his resignation is likely to be his most valuable contribution to the company’s future development.) And those in power (their genders are almost always male) still support each other. If a “self-righteous” manager moves to a new product group, his “self-righteous” team will follow him. If the company’s newcomers question this rigid thinking, the followers of this manager will jump out and stand on the united front with the managers, which makes it impossible for those who try to change them. It is thought that following the example of Gates and Ballmer can make them fame and fortune, and to change this situation, not only the cultural posters in the corridor, some online training, but also the strange enterprise like #MicrosoftLife This requires zero tolerance for past and current cultural misconduct.
Nadella’s attempt to change Microsoft’s culture has benefited more than just newcomers and young people. Microsoft has a laudable tradition: welcome every “lone-walker” with a different mindset and embrace every dreamer with ideals, so Microsoft can meet the needs of different people in a variety of dimensions. This corporate culture of full respect for personality gives Microsoft employees a sense of belonging.
However, the corporate culture of “embracing diversity” goes far beyond this. This corporate culture has always been adhered to, not inherited, because Gates’s influence is deeply rooted, and his followers have no way to do this. When these followers were questioned, they simply used Gates’s name as a talisman, and because Gates’ guilt was still not made public, their amulet also worked.
It’s a pity that whenever Microsoft succeeds in smashing oligarchy, the end result is often amazing. Despite falling behind in every important technology area (currently behind in many areas of technology that it once dismissed, such as mobile and personal agents), Microsoft is still standing. Income has increased, stock prices have risen, and even industry status has increased. Everything in Microsoft’s booming period has one thing in common: those in power want to give way to better people.
This is the problem of a single leadership culture like “doing like me”, “talking like me”, “thinking like me”: it does not promote the best talents, but promotes those who are the most Similar talent. When those in power were ousted, and those who followed Nadella’s new corporate culture came to power, it was not far from success.
Breaking the law
With Amy Hood as an example, she was named Microsoft’s chief financial officer. At first, no one knew her name. She didn’t belong to any well-known power circle, nor did she hang around in common social places. When this decision was announced, it caused widespread doubts within the company. But now, people are no longer whispering about it. In fact, few people can remember the name of the predecessor she replaced, and Hood is now considered one of the best CFOs in the tech world. Her attention is more focused on talent, because only talent can promote the development of corporate culture.
A similar situation with Amy Hood happens again in the sales team transformation. Ballmer’s right-hand man, Kevin Tumer, is his replica, and they do the same thing. Like Ballmer, Turner is also a benchmark in the company. Regardless of how bad Microsoft has been in innovation in the 2000s and early 2010s, his sales are always impressive. People inside the company once joked that he can sell dry air in the desert. Although there is hardly anything exciting to sell, the sales departmentIt has become a money-making machine, creating wealth for the company season after season and year after year. Insiders firmly believe that he is irreplaceable.
The leader should reflect the ideals and values of the subordinates, not the superiors. Raising the awareness of these leaders is the quickest way to repair a broken culture.
However, those who once thought that Turner was irreplaceable were beaten. When Nadella left, the revival began. New voices are constantly emerging, new ideas are finally adopted, and new energy is finally born. Everyone was shocked when everyone realized that Turner’s way of doing things dragged the sales department’s hind legs. His aura is not real, it is just a reflection of Ballmer’s aura. There are still many talents in the society that are better and better than Hood, but if they continue to block the loyalty of those in power, then these people will never stand out.
But Microsoft’s biggest shift in authority occurs in the cloud computing sector, which is currently the primary source of Microsoft’s profits and shareholder interests. Nadella personally managed the team. Under his leadership, the team achieved its goals but did not create any jaw-dropping performance. When he beat the candidates to the post of CEO, everyone was very surprised. The new managers all have their own uniqueness. They are not the people who took the wind in the Gates Gold Rush era, but they still can find the “gold” in their years when Ballmer is in a downturn. The leader. They never assume that they can succeed, but do their best to succeed in their work. It is the efforts of these people that make Microsoft a future. From the perspective of hiring such a talent management company, it must be said that Nadella is doing better than the first two.
The most culturally influential is not a presentation, training or label, but a high-level change. If you want a truly lasting cultural change, you must drive away those who have achieved success in their original culture and promote those whose behaviors and thinking are more like employees than managers.
My former leap manager, Qi Lu, is a good example. He is another widely acclaimed “variable big coffee” who left Bing and reborn Bing. Because of his arbitrariness, many of the great ideas of the following people are “nowhere to put.” Qi Lu is the darling of the boss and colleagues, but his team members do not recognize him. When his rigid thinking was driven away, many new ideas sprang up like mushrooms. Unfortunately, for Bing, it is too late! If someone contributes a proper investment opportunity to Google, Google will change the world. Instead, Microsoft’s those solid stepsWhat the self-styled authorities can do is to ensure Google’s monopoly.
It’s worth mentioning that cultural transformation did not happen in a department like Windows. Nadella simply re-planned the position of the old managers in the company. Instead of implementing the script in accordance with his own cultural changes, he simply replaced the former manager of Windows with the manager of Windows Phone. These same people, who have not made the decision to win for mobile technology in the past decade, are now suddenly taking on the responsibility of making decisions for desktop technology. As expected, Windows continues the tedious, loopholes of software traditions, and is constantly updated in this embarrassing situation. The ideas of those in power in the old days were hard to change, and the real talents and unconstrained ideas in the Windows department were suppressed under the authority of those in power.
Assume that Windows is the only way to save Microsoft, and the group that once supported Gates and Ballmer’s strategy can make a big difference in networking, cloud computing and mobile technology. Maybe Microsoft is still saving. But if the legacy of the past is lingering in the future, then Microsoft’s tomorrow will be in jeopardy.
Microsoft knows that you have a problem, otherwise it will not fight so openly to reinvent itself. The message I want to convey is simple: you can’t sing praise for its great achievements after abandoning some old ideas. The great cause of those who make you believe in a certain culture makes your thoughts follow them and fall into it.
From Turner and Qi Lu’s loss of power, one can conclude that whether the CFO is Nadella or anyone else, the future of Microsoft will eventually be the world of talented people who are not well-known but advancing with the times. Microsoft’s future development trajectory depends largely on Nadella’s actual commitment: he publicly claims to create a more diversified, humble and low-key company. As can be seen from the above example, Microsoft is working hard in this direction.
In essence, Microsoft is