Thank you, Microsoft

Today is my last day at Microsoft.

Leaving this wonderful company has been an extremely difficult decision to make. I had the opportunity to work with wonderful, amazing people, both from a personal and professional standpoint. While I am excited about the new journey I will soon begin, I feel to share I have had the opportunity to work in one of the best companies in the world.

I would like to share here some of the most important things that I have learned during these seven years.

The importance of Purpose, Vision, Mission, and Values

“Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more”. This is everything. This is everywhere. I will not even try to elaborate on this, here, in a few lines. The first day I entered Microsoft I could immediately see how this drives everything. You can truly understand the relevance of this when you work for Microsoft. “Empowerment” is the key term. It focuses on people.

Putting Empathy at the core of the company

I always knew the importance of empathy. I think there is no secret about the importance it has for the quality of our life. At the same time, at Microsoft I learned how it is possible for a company to have as “primary concern” not only how to create innovative products, but also how empathy can create an innovative culture. I could clearly experience this during these years at Microsoft, where employees are encouraged to take up real-life lessons that help us see things from the perspective of others. Our global CEO (Satya Nadella) strongly believes that “the ability to empathize sparks the innovation that helps employees create products and services that meet the unmet and unarticulated needs of customers”. I could just see how much this is true in everyday activities.

Encouraging a Growth mindset

While I was already familiar with the concept of “Growth mindset”, having read the famous book by Carol Dweck, at Microsoft I could see how the growth of employees directly influences the company's growth. Managers encourage employees to be a part of something beyond Microsoft. Employees are prompted to do things that make them happy, even when these activities may be unrelated to their job at Microsoft. At the same time, this gives them the opportunity to develop their Growth mindset. In this way, we (employees) learn – and share learnings - just every day. The quote from Satya “Always keep learning. You stop doing useful things if you don’t learn” is so profoundly true.

The importance of true Collaboration

The word “one Microsoft” is among those I heard the most at Microsoft. Every company talks about the importance of collaboration, but Microsoft really puts a lot of effort into ensuring that everyone comes together as one. I was always encouraged to work together as a team, as no big thing gets done individually. Big dreams only come true through collective efforts.

Being a Fearless Organization

In our team at Microsoft Western Europe, we invested a lot of time in creating a Fearless Organization, which means an environment where “psychological safety” is highlighted as key for organizations to innovate, learn and grow while improving belonging, adaptability, and resilience. I remember with profound gratitude the crucial conversations we had on the benefits offered by improving psychological safety. A strong willingness to help, truly valuing inclusion and diversity, a positive and constructive attitude towards risk and failure, as well as encouraging open conversations, are all key to achieve this.

Coaching as a way of leading

Coaching is among the practices I experienced the most at Microsoft, both for the quality of coaching I received from our leaders as well as for the investment I could benefit from, in this respect. I took courses, read books, had on-site and on-line sharing, and so much more, all provided by Microsoft. Often leveraging the learnings from Michael Bungay Stanier’s “The Coaching Habit”. I will always remember the kickstart question “What’s on your mind?”, the AWE question “And what else?”, The Focus Question, and so forth. At the end, I understood how the magic is “a little more asking people questions and a little less telling people what to do”. Just try it, and you will be amazed by the results you will achieve.

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So, it is now time to leave my Surface. Thank you, Microsoft. Thank you, Microsoft colleagues and friends, for everything you have given me over these years.

Goodbye, and see you soon!?