My Learnings Series: Jan 2019 Book #1

1.Satya missed out on securing admissions into the prestigious IITs, yet making it to the TOP of Microsoft – perhaps managing a few people from those prestigious institutions during his meteoric rise. Any person who is good at managing themselves and others can be successful in life. It doesn’t need a degree from a reputed institution. In fact people themselves define the trajectory they scale and just a degree from a reputed institution doesn’t guarantee success.

2. The immigration laws impacted Satya during his wife’s move to the US, however he worked around them the best he could at that point, today he understands his responsibility to voice out and act to represent the policies towards immigrants, while still pursuing the American Dream. The power of taking significant decisions comes with the responsibility towards making significant impact to a larger audience. People look up to you to make a difference at every level. At the top most level there’s expectations of what you think, and how you act towards in every contemporary situation.

3. Satya, and particularly his wife Anu handled the birth of their first child (being differently abled), with a whole lot of maturity, this changed Satya as a professional – and his wife gave up her professional pursuits to prioritize care for their child.  Microsoft as an organization spends a significant amount of time in philanthropy and in specific areas. Satya explains very well how his personal experiences made him more empathetic moving forward, and even today helps him foster empathy in the organization. Incidents in one’s personal life impact them as a professional. It is important how you learn from them instead of brooding about how things would have been different. Also there is a growing sense of how one can impact professionally to causes they may hold close to their heart personally. Rather than looking at a work-life balance how can one make work life integration work.

4. Microsoft’s meteoric rise, and then the stagnation before Satya took over, reflects how skills could be important but Culture is of paramount importance to an organization. The Principle of having a PC on each desk which Paul and Bill founded the company with time and context needed a change “helping every person and every organization to achieve more”. Finding the soul and finding purpose and meaning in what they do helps employees be more engaged. While skills definitely reflect what organizations can achieve, culture defines how well they would do a certain task more often and more completely.

5. Satya talks about a cricket match where his captain made a small change in bowling which Satya was being hit all over the park. However the captain immediately brought him back to bowl. Satya didn't realize the importance of the incident until he became a practicing leader at work. Sport teaches you a lot. When you are on the field, there’s enjoyment and competition, but a closer look at the same and you realize how much there is to learn from every small interaction – every small situation. And all of life should be lived in the same manner, fun and competition, but never to lose a lesson.

6. Satya’s mother helped him focus on being happy at every point in time. He reminisces she would often ask him, Are you happy in what you are doing today. This was the same question she asked him in their last conversation (when we was already the CEO of Microsoft), before her untimely death. His father helped him push himself beyond his ambitions, without which he says he wouldn’t end up achieving much. It is a parent’s job to expose the child to as many experiences of life as they can. However none of this with any expectations. Parents with varied backgrounds add to a child’s personality. That in no way should pressurize the child, however help them achieve their potential.

7. Only the 3rd CEO at Microsoft from the time it was founded (40+ years ago) – Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer had both left a legacy, some may feel it’s difficult to succeed them, however Satya, as advised by Steve, “It’s too late to change yourself – be yourself and do what you think is right”, maintained who he is. Following the footsteps of the famous can be challenging, however if you are authentic to your roots, and are able to align every decision to the larger purpose – success would be yours for the taking. In the last almost 5 years since taking over, Satya has not only turned Microsoft around in terms of market results, share prices, but also getting back to the core of the business, that’s “people”.

8. During Steve Ballmer’s tenure as the CEO, Microsoft was looking to hire Dr. Qi Lu (from Yahoo) and that would mean Satya’s own career progress would take a step back. Steve asked Satya should we hire him, pat came the response, “The Organization needs Dr. Qi on board and me and the team would get to learn so much. And they ended up hiring him. Should you hire people smarter than you? Will this impact your growth trajectory? Questions of this sort pop up in a lot of our minds. While theoretically this could be good to explain – it wouldn’t be as easy to do it in practice. Satya has exhibited well how, if you are good at what you do, and are meant to move up the ladder hiring smarter people cannot come in the way. In fact it does show his maturity to work together with smart people, who he may lead one day.

9. The last two assignments Satya took on within Microsoft, before being CEO were among the toughest, most successful people would not be comfortable taking those up. To take over a low margin, negligible growth, potential business of “Cloud” when the “Server Business” is doing so well, is nothing short of a gamble. In fact a decision most insiders would not recommend – Satya’s strong ability to see the trends long before they are secular knowledge gives him the ability to lead Microsoft through today’s VUCA world. Taking over the “Bing – Search” team, in the face of how strong Google was, and to get it to be a strong revenue generator, was also not something too many leaders would be comfortable to take. In the end, these two roles may have just have led him to the route to being the CEO, in the face of internal as well as external competition.

10.  During the CEO Search, one of the Board member’s asked Satya, “Do you want to be CEO?”, and his response was, “If you’d like me to”. Given that he was the one selected to take the top job, and given that in the last “almost” 5 years – the heights to which Satya has taken the organization to proves one thing, the perception is that you should be gung ho, aggressive, to get leadership roles, this even if you are not naturally aggressive, is not correct. While achieving the numbers is a responsibility in the top job, not everybody is naturally pushy. In their own way everybody can achieve results. In fact in today’s world, it’s important to be empathetic towards your customers and colleagues, it’s important to be collaborative with both internal and external stakeholders. Everybody has a different style of leadership and being authentic to yourself at the same time being mindful of what’s required for the organization can be the gam changer for you.

11. My greatest learning was, how Satya has focused on creating a wonderful ecosystem for Microsoft, whether it is Windows <3 Linux, or creating “Office Suite” for Apple, infact using an iPhone during a demonstration clearly signifies the maturity at which Satya operates and is helping the organization operate at that level. In short, Satya explains that competitors offer some of what Microsoft offers and some complementary products and/or services to the same set of customers, by collaborating in areas, both the organizations are able to provide more value to the end customer, and in some cases expand the market. It is definitely a win-win and the way to operate in the future.