Accelerating transformation

This week, I had the honor of addressing 10,000 colleagues and partners at the Microsoft Inspire and Ready Conference in Las Vegas. It was a special opportunity to share key messages across our ecosystem, celebrate our partners and employees, and rally the team to accelerate the pace of transformation at Microsoft.

We’ve had a year of massive change in our commercial model at Microsoft; coupled with a year of amazing results. How does that happen? It boils down to three things: mission, mindset, and culture.

A company’s mission brings people together. At Microsoft, our mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more is incredibly powerful. When you “empower” others, you’re giving them the capability to grow. While my role focuses on our U.S. business, our mission is inclusive of Microsoft’s global scale – extending to the four corners of our “planet” for impact. And when I think of the word “achieve,” I think of macroeconomic growth and productivity. To truly transform, we must all be moving in the same direction, and our strong grounding in a truly differentiated mission helps us do just that.

Our collective company mindset moves us forward. At Microsoft, we talk about the growth mindset – the intellectual freedom to try new things without fearing the backlash of failure. While many people have a natural fear of failure (myself included!), transforming a company requires the courage to try new things and the discipline to use failing as a source of learning. I’ve had many learning moments in my first year at Microsoft – I view these as opportunities to grow, listen for more signals, and change course, as needed. I feel so fortunate to be supported in this journey by our senior leadership team, and I want to ensure that our entire Microsoft US organization feels the same from me.

Finally, our culture helps us grow. We’ve explicitly defined our culture at Microsoft, grounded in a growth mindset as the foundation. We’re also customer obsessed, maniacally focused on discovering and addressing customer pain points through deep listening. We operate as One Microsoft by softening the silos inside and outside of the company to operate as a true team. And we operate with diversity and inclusion at the center of it all. I am deeply committed to building a diverse and inclusive commercial workforce –  I believe our business results depend on it – and I want to encourage everyone at Microsoft to commit to the same. Imagine our true capacity if we created a culture where every human could contribute at their maximum potential…

Our customers are telling me that they feel a change in Microsoft, and they love it. They also tell me they want us to accelerate that change and deliver it more consistently. As such, in FY19 and beyond, we’ll really lean into our mission, mindset and culture to deeply differentiate Microsoft and accelerate the pace of our commercial transformation.

Let me know if you’re all in!