The change I want to see in Microsoft

I started working at Microsoft at age twenty-five. I arrived following a brief experience as an employee with Intel in California, and previously as a freelancer from Argentina for a telecommunications company in Los Angeles.

As the years passed I took on new responsibilities. I went from being an Individual Contributor to Manager, and then to Manager of Managers. Each new position came with more benefits, greater resources, and of course, bigger responsibilities and problems to solve.

 I had just started leading my first management team when my boss recommended it was an appropriate time for me to attend the MEC, the Microsoft internal workshop that trains leadership skills, lasts one week and at the time was run almost every week of the year. (MEC stands for Management Excellence Community)

 I had always considered myself the non-complaining type. Someone who took the lead in the face of difficulties. However, during the exhaustive training process that the coaches put us through, much to my dismay, I became aware of how much time and energy I had spent focusing on things that didn't depend on me: all those things my superiors in the organization needed to change or resolve, so that I could achieve better results.

 When it was time to wrap-up the week-long class, I was profoundly moved. The coaches made us form a big circle and then invited us to come forward one by one to share what we were committing to do differently from that point on. As we were making our commitments, we were also asked to perform the ritual of dropping a small marble into a community hat.

 When it was my turn, I remembered a relevant quote by Mahatma Gandhi that had impacted me and I said: "From now on I commit to be the change that I want to see in Microsoft".

 The years went by, and with the new promotions came the day when it was now my turn to send one of the managers who reported to me to attend the leadership workshop. When the manager returned from the course I asked him how it was. His first comment took me by surprise.

 He said: “Your name came up in the workshop.” "Really?" "Sure” he replied. “When we were in the wrap-up activity the coach said that a few years ago a participant named Diego had made a commitment that had marked him and had inspired him to adopt it as his own. Since that workshop, in every wrap-up session the coach too promised to be the change he wanted to see in Microsoft."

 This anecdote mentioned in passing by my manager had a major impact on me. Something I had briefly said in a seminar three years earlier, had left its mark on one of the coaches and was repeated weekly. I find it fascinating that in the precise moment when I recognized myself as being part of the problem of the old individualistic company culture, and committed to start being part of the solution, my words caused an immediate and remarkable impact.

Do I have a problem, or am I part of the problem?

Do I work in an individualistic culture, or am I part of an individualistic culture?

Do I have a united family, or am I being a united family?

Do I have a demotivated team, or am I being a demotivated team?

In that seminar I learned that every time, instead of seeing myself as apart from, I choose to see myself as part of what is happening to my team, my wife or my children, I recover the power to change that situation. I understood that just by seeing myself as part of what is happening today, either what I am doing or not doing, I can start to be part of what needs to be changed so that something different begins to happen.

In recent years at Microsoft, we are changing many of the things we wanted to change. Now more than ever, we have the opportunity to make new things happen. Therefore, I invite you to choose any area where you are not getting the results you are looking for, and I challenge you to take a simple action that makes you part of the solution and helps make things happen.

Written by Diego Rejtman, with Guillermo Echevarria

I want to dedicate this article to my colleagues in the Microsoft Learning & Insights team. That's the department responsible for designing and executing the MEC training and others like it. Their work has transformed many leaders for the better. And I also dedicate it to the hundreds of executive coaches that aligned their passion to help Microsoft leaders make things happen over the years.