Hit Refresh

Live to work or work to live

In the past year, I spent most of my time… on my work. Endless workload, endless business travel, endless meetings and presentations, endless calls and email correspondences, endless work messages. I use work as an excuse: Because of work, I’m too busy to do something. For example, I’m too busy to exercise, I’m too busy to read books, I’m too busy to meet old friends, I’m too busy to have a personal chat, I’m too busy to talk to my family back home, I’m too busy to have a proper sleep. But busy is not a good excuse. Busy is not an excuse at all. Busy or not is how we manage our time. When we start to use ‘busy’ as an excuse, that means we don’t have control of our own time anymore, and that means we are suck at time management or prioritization. Do we live to work or do we work to live?

So, I tried to balance, but balance in an unsustainable state. Meaning when I didn’t travel for work, I could balance between my work and my personal life. But when the business travel kicked in, everything was not balanced any more. And I travel a lot, with crazy schedule. During those times, work dominated. My day was full with meetings, full with prep works and follow ups, full with busy-ness.

Sometimes I paused to think. I made some resolutions, but all were very short-lived. So I asked myself again, do we live to work or do we work to live? What is the meaning of all of this?

See the world with a different view

I took a break. I told my husband: For this trip, let’s just relax. We don’t need to follow our normal travel practice. We don’t need to plan every day with full of activities. We don’t need to run with time. Just have a relax vacation, and enjoy the moments. In Spain.

I used my senses. I used my eyes. I looked at the scenery, the view of the landscapes, the mountains, the beaches, the buildings, the churches, the castles, the streets, the architecture, the parks, the museums, the lakes, the trees, the statues, the paintings, the exhibitions, the football field, the stadium, the people, the dogs, the food, the paella, the prawn, the taxi, the train, the cafeteria.

I looked into the past. Antoni Gaudi’s architecture: The Sagrada Familia, The Casa Mila, The Casa Batllo, all with never-before-imagined shapes and solutions, inspired by nature and light. Pablo Picasso’s surreal paintings. Salvador Dali’s before-his-time art works. Some worked on a project for a lifetime. For example, The Temple of Sagrada Familia was Gaudi’s top priority, devoting 43 years of his life to it – the last 12 working only on the temple.

I read and thought about their sayings:

“What must always preserved is the spirit of the work; its life will depend on the generations that transmit this spirit and bring it to life”, Antoni Gaudi.

“No, painting is not made to decorate apartments. It’s an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy”, Pablo Picasso.

“Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision”, Salvador Dali.

I watched and listened. To the Flamenco dance. The dance is known for its emotional intensity, proud carriage, expressive use of the arms and rhythmic stamping of the feet. A solo female dancer told us: “Flamenco is not about some sexy ladies wearing glamourous dress dancing on stage. Flamenco is to celebrate the spirit of the dance and show that we are strong. We (dancers) are very strong (physically). And we improvise.”

Almost 2 weeks in different cities of Spain, starting from Barcelona (with day trip to Montserrat, Figueres, Girona), then to Madrid (with day trip to Toledo, Segovia), and then back to Barcelona again (my favourite of all).

I watched and listened. To the people. A lady peacefully read a novel on the bus. A street performer played a trumpet with joyful melody such as The Lion King or Baby Shark. A musician played a piano with familiar Christmas songs in the park.

I tasted the pastries with a sweet tooth. Warm churros with hot chocolate in Madrid. Sugary-coated xuixo and chocolate truffles in Girona. Sweet marzipan in Toledo. And tasty seafood paella every day in Barcelona.

I saw the world with a different view. Yeah, we should not live to work, we should work to live. Simply because there are so much more to see, listen, touch, smell, and feel.

Hit refresh

During this trip, I also read a new book “Hit Refresh” by Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella. I brought this book with me because the title seemed to resonate. Firstly, I look forward to recharging and refreshing after a long and hard-working year. Secondly, the timing was right, end of the year 2019, and beginning of a new year 2020 as well as beginning of a new decade, so no better time to hit refresh than now. And thirdly, I’m intrigued to read the full story shared by Microsoft’s current CEO about how the company has been able to transition away from a purely Windows-centric approach to a cloud-based approach under Satya’s leadership.

For the context, Microsoft only has 3 CEOs since it was co-founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 (45 years ago), with Bill Gates as its first CEO. Then Steve Ballmer replaced Gates as CEO in 2000, and later envisioned a “devices and services” strategy, opening the personal computer production era with the launch of Microsoft Surface line of tablet computers in 2012, and later forming Microsoft Mobile through the acquisition of Nokia’s mobile hardware division in 2013. However, Microsoft was late in the mobile strategy, as compared to Apple or Google. The acquisition of Nokia has been later proven to be a wrong move, in which buying a falling business without any differentiation in strategy in the hope of winning the race in fact turned out to be chasing the race and finally Microsoft had to write-off the Nokia’s business in order to cut losses. (One interesting thing to note is that when Steve Ballmer asked the members of his leadership team to vote thumb-ups or thumb-downs on the Nokia’s acquisition deal, Satya voted ‘No’ because he “did not get why the world needed the third ecosystem in phones, unless (Microsoft) changed the rule.)

Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014 (he wrote this book “Hit Refresh" and published in 2017), Microsoft has scaled back on hardware and has instead focused on cloud computing, a move that helped the company’s shared reach its highest value since Dec 1999.

3 things that I like the most in this book “Hit Refresh” are:   

1.    Transforming the culture – the 3Cs model

Satya has this model of Concepts, Capabilities, and Culture. For companies to be successful, they all need the combination of 3Cs. However, at some point, when the concept or idea is going to run out of gas, you need new capability to go after new concept, and the only thing that can enable you to keep building new capabilities and trying out new concepts is culture. Companies need to overemphasize on the importance of culture. Following this model, Satya re-designed Microsoft’s vision and transformed its culture. Microsoft now existed to “empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” “In a radical change from the past, it would become a people company instead of a product company.” 

2.    Growth mindset vs. Fixed mindset

Satya was inspired by the book “Mindset: The new psychology of success” by Dr. Carol Dweck, which was a gift from his wife. The view is that the world is divided by learners and non-learners. “A fixed mindset will limit you and a growth mindset can move you forward. The hand you are dealt is just the starting point. Passion, toil, and training can help you to soar.” Under Satya’s leadership, he encouraged the employees to exercise a growth mindset by being customer-obsessed, diverse, and inclusive and cultivate growth and continuous learning in the culture. I feel this could be applied to every individual, every team, and every organization.  

3.    Empathy - Technology and products must embody empathy

He talked a lot about the need for a culture of greater empathy because it’s only through empathy that you can really understand the unmet, unarticulated needs of customers. He said: “Work is a large part of what we do in life. If it was only about achieving some scorecard metrics, I don’t think that would be enough of a deep meaning.” This saying really resonates with me a lot, how we can connect our own life experience, our passion, and our empathy, to our work, and making a difference in other people’s lives.

So Culture, Growth Mindset, and Empathy are the 3 things that I’ve learned and will apply.

2020 New Year Resolution

It’s the first few hours of the new year, and for this time, I won’t make a long new year resolution list. I will just make a simple 5 points that I hope it would help me to “hit refresh” in 2020:

1.    Dedicate time to read and listen

2.    Dedicate time for outdoor walk and appreciate nature

3.    Dedicate time for quality relationships 

4.    Dedicate time to write and think

5.    And finally, dedicate time for meaningful work through empathy

Happy New Year! Hope my sharing resonates with you in some ways :)

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