The 12 Simple Secrets of

Microsoft Management
Motley Fool Staff
Updated: Dec 21, 2016 at 5:20PM
ALEXANDRIA, VA (Dec. 20, 1999) -- Recently, a friend of mine told me that all you
need to know about Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is that they have $19 billion in liquid
cash and another $15 billion in strategic investments. He has a point. And a lot of times
in this space, we look at quantitative evidence, especially in the financial statements, to
verify whether a company is making the rules in its industry.

But cash hoards, gross margins, and flow ratios are really just the end result of business
excellence on a more qualitative level -- attributes such as a well-planned strategy, good
managerial skills, and a productive workplace. The only problem with studying these
qualitative factors is that they're difficult to ascertain without insider knowledge. One
alternative way of obtaining this type of insight, however, is through some of the well-
written books about Rule Makers. Today, let's take a peek inside the Microsoft corporate
campus through the eyes of David Thielen, author of The 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft
Management.

The book, published this year, explains in plain language (and just 175 pages)
Microsoft's management style and corporate culture. Although the book is written
primarily for business managers seeking to emulate Microsoft's success, I think we as
investors can learn a lot of useful info. The author, Mr. Thielen, worked at Microsoft as a
senior software developer on Windows 95 and several other projects. In his words,
"Microsoft's management style is its core strength," and "Microsoft's management
strength is why it will continue to dominate."

Here goes with a few of the main ideas on each of Microsoft's 12 secrets:

1. Total World Domination

Some companies focus on the bottom line. In contrast, Thielen forcefully asserts that
every single Microsoft employee is single-mindedly focused on winning 100% of their
target market, whatever it might be. Microsoft's culture is one of maximizing long-term
profits by, in the near term, capturing market share in strategic markets.
2. The Top Five Percent

According to Thielen, "One of the enjoyable things about working at Microsoft is that
even the least talented are pretty damn smart, the average are superb, and the best
leave you trying every day to match their work." Microsoft rigorously attempts to hire
only the smartest people, those who are within the smartest 5% of the total population.
But don't confuse smarts  with knowledge. Knowledge is for books on a shelf. Microsoft
seeks individuals who can turn on their brains and really think. These are the types of
people who create new ideas, catch errors quickly, and come up with a more efficient
way of doing things. In essence, by hiring the smartest people, Microsoft goes a long
way toward ensuring a highly productive workforce.

3. Bet the Company

Winning in the game of business is about being willing to make bets at good odds. In
the early 1990s, Bill Gates bet the company on Windows. In 1996, Bill bet the company
on the Internet. By all indications, the principle of "betting the company" is
institutionalized within Microsoft management.

4. Require Failure

At most companies, to succeed is good, but to fail is unacceptable. This type of policy
means that, as a risk/reward scenario, the risk of failure vastly exceeds the reward of
success. Thus, most companies suffer from a workforce that pursues a course of failure
avoidance. In contrast, at Microsoft, failure is expected, and even required because
risking failure is the only way to push the envelope. As a result, Microsofties relentlessly
pursue success without fear of failure. And if they fail, they understand that the key is to
fail quickly and not waste time.

5. Managers Are Qualified

At Microsoft, the most important qualification for a manager is expertise in the

functional area over which (s)he is managing. According to Thielen, "Managers at
Microsoft fully understand the work the people who report to them do. Almost without
exception, those managers could do the job of any individual doing the core work for
their team." For example, managers of marketing teams are great marketers; managers
of sales teams are excellent sales people; and, managers of programming teams are
expert programmers. This principle applies all the way up to Bill Gates, who is an expert
at programming -- Microsoft's core competency.
6. Perform, Perform, Perform

Performance is all that matters at Microsoft, so much so that excuses are flat-out
irrelevant. In fact, Microsoft is so stubbornly focused on performance that Thielen even
describes the company as "heartless" and "unfair." But the end result of this single-
minded concern for success is that Microsoft performs like a champion sports team.

7. "Shrimp vs. Weenies"

Even with its billions upon billions in cash, Microsoft is as frugal as Ebeneezer Scrooge.
It's a company that buys canned weenies for food, not shrimp. Until last year, even Bill
Gates and his second-in-command Steve Ballmer flew coach. (For scheduling reasons,
the company purchased its first corporate jet.) Bucking the trend of most large, wealthy
corporations, Microsoft remains in start-up mode where tight budgets are the rule.
When you sit back and think about it, this frugality is less surprising and
even explains  how a company can come to accumulate such great hoards of cash.

8. Size Does Matter

I, for one, am guilty of describing Microsoft as a "software behemoth." But Thielen takes
a different view: "Microsoft is not a single, large company; rather it is a collection of
small, independent companies. The primary job functions at Microsoft are creating,
testing, marketing, and selling software. And, amazingly enough, these functions are
largely performed separately for each and every project." Thereby, Microsoft largely
avoids the bureaucracy that weighs down so many large companies. Thus, Microsoft
retains the independence and agility of a small company, while also benefiting from the
financial resources, marketing muscle, and overall strategic direction of a large, powerful
corporation.

9. Bill is Watching

Bill Gates and Microsoft's other senior executives really understand what's happening in
their organization. Every month, the lead manager on every project e-mails a status
report to Bill and the other key managers, providing an update on the project's status
and any major problems. In addition, every Saturday morning, Bill calls every single vice
president and spends half an hour discussing the issues in each department. According
to Thielen, "Bill's approach, his philosophy, and his strategic vision permeates the entire
company." And because Bill Gates has such a deep understanding of programming and
technology, he's able -- and willing  -- to communicate down through the ranks and
even grill the software developers who actually perform the work. Thielen concludes,
"Because Bill understands what is happening throughout the company, [his] decisions
are generally the correct ones for the strategic direction of the company."

10. Esprit de Corps

Again alluding to Microsoft being less like a big company than it appears, Thielen
asserts that Microsoft has esprit de corps like that of a start-up where everyone involved
is focused on a common goal. Microsofties take great pride in their work, partly because
they have a great deal of freedom in how they go about their jobs. Pranks, jokes, and
games are all part of the atmosphere. It's a work hard, play hard culture.

11. Stop the Insanity

The plague of most big companies is bureaucracy and stupid rules. Thielen gives the
example of an un-named high-tech company that sent a four-page memo to all of its
employees on proper security badge procedure, including infinitesimal details on how
and where to wear the badge. To that, Thielen states, "Does Microsoft manage to avoid
this type of inane garbage? By and large, yes." Unlike most companies, Microsoft
actually assumes its employees are smart (perhaps based on principle #2). Rules at
Microsoft are few and far between, and the ones that exist tend to make sense. Having
only a few important, logical rules means that employees actually remember and follow
them.

12. Home Away From Home

Microsoft has a simple way of maximizing its employees' productivity: It allows each
individual's office to be as individualized  as one desires. That means making the office
more like home. Everything from real offices (not cubicles) to windows in most offices,
from free soft drinks to no dress code, from an open supply room to anything-goes
work hours. Quite simply, these policies improve employee morale, and thus increase
overall productivity.

Conclusion

In sum, Microsoft has a big company's resources with a small company's agility and
focus. The 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft Management makes a convincing case for the
competitive advantage that exists in Microsoft's management style.

One final note -- our Foolanthropy efforts are really gaining steam. We've now collected
more than $160,000. A generous Fool, who wishes to remain anonymous, has just issued
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Have a Foolish night, everyone. Phil's back tomorrow.

- Matt Richey

https://www.fool.com/archive/portfolios/rulemaker/1999/12/20/the-12-simple-secrets-of-microsoft-
management.aspx

Microsoft Corporation’s Organizational

Structure & Its Characteristics (An Analysis)
UPDATED ONUPDATED ON SEPTEMBER 8, 2018 BY JESSICA LOMBARDO

Front lobby
entrance of one of the buildings in Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington
campus. Microsoft Corporation’s organizational structure’s characteristics
support product innovation. (Photo: Public Domain)

Microsoft Corporation’s organizational structure enables the business

to grow, especially following the firm’s structural change implemented
in 2015. A company’s corporate structure refers to the anatomy and
arrangement of the organization and its components. In Microsoft’s
 case, the organizational structure stresses the importance of business
output. As a dominant player in the IBM PC-compatible operating
system market, the company uses its structure to maintain
competitive advantage, in accordance to its strategies
[Read: Microsoft’s Generic Strategy & Intensive Growth Strategies].
The company’s long-term success depends on the suitability of its
corporate structure to market conditions and industry forces.

Microsoft  Corporation’s organizational structure reflects the needs of

the computer hardware and software business in response to market
dynamics. A responsive organizational structure ensures the
company’s long-term success.

Features of Microsoft’s Corporate Structure

Microsoft Corporation has a product type divisional organizational
structure. This structure involves divisions that are based on certain
computer hardware and software products, or organizational outputs.
The following characteristics are significant in Microsoft’s
organizational structure:

1. Product type divisions (most dominant structural feature)

2. Global corporate groups
3. Geographic segments

Product Type Divisions. Product type divisions are the primary

characteristic of Microsoft’s organizational structure. In this
characteristic, the company uses product or output as the main
criterion for grouping personnel and related resources. For example,
the organization has a self-contained division for Intelligent Cloud
products and separate divisions for other products. This structural
feature contributes to the company’s organizational capacity for
product innovation. The following are the product type divisions in
Microsoft’s corporate structure:

1. Productivity and Business Processes

2. Intelligent Cloud
3. More Personal Computing
4. Corporate and Other
 Global Corporate Groups. Global corporate groups are a secondary
characteristic that defines Microsoft’s organizational structure. These
groups are based on the functions essential in the computer
technology business. For example, the Human Resources group
addresses the company’s workforce needs and related concerns. This
structural characteristic ensures that the organization functions as a
whole. The following are the global corporate groups in Microsoft’s
organizational structure:

1. Office of the CEO

2. Worldwide Commercial Business
3. Marketing
4. Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing and Operations
5. Corporate Strategy and Operations
6. Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise Group
7. Human Resources
8. Finance
9. Business Development
10. Applications and Services Group
11. Windows and Devices Group
12. Technology and Research
13. Legal

Geographic Segments. Microsoft Corporation’s corporate structure

also involves geographic segments as the least significant
characteristic. These segments are used to group operations in the
company’s financial reports. The following are the geographic
divisions in Microsoft’s organizational structure:

1. United States
2. International

Microsoft’s Organizational Structure – Implications, Advantages

& Disadvantages
The main implication of Microsoft Corporation’s organizational
structure is the ability to focus on product development. For example,
the company uses its Intelligent Cloud division to offer cutting-edge
cloud computing services. A corresponding advantage of this
corporate structure is its contribution to the competitiveness of
Microsoft’s products.
A disadvantage of the company’s organizational structure is its
minimal consideration for regional market differences. Regions have
varying preferences with regard to Microsoft’s computer hardware and
software features, such as in the case of smartphones. Thus, a
recommendation is for the company to integrate regional market
differences in its organizational structural design.

http://panmore.com/microsoft-corporation-organizational-structure-characteristics-analysis

Microsoft Organizational Structure:

Divisional Structure with Focus on
Innovation
Posted on January 31, 2019 by John Dudovskiy

Microsoft organizational structure can be classified as divisional.  In June 2015,

the senior management announced a change in Microsoft organizational
structure to align to its strategic direction as a productivity and platform
company. This restructuring initiative resulted in elimination of approximately
7,400 positions in fiscal year 2016.[1] The current divisional pattern of Microsoft
organizational structure is the result of this restructuring initiative.
As it is illustrated in figure below, Microsoft organizational structure is divided
into divisions according to engineering groups and business functions.
Specifically, on the basis of engineering groups, the company is divided into three
divisions, whereas according to business functions it is divided into 9 divisions:
 Microsoft Organizational Structure
The latest restructuring of Microsoft organizational structure and shift to
divisional organizational structure offers the following advantages to the
business:
Firstly, under the new organizational structure, heads of engineering groups
directly report to CEO Satya Nadella with positive implications on new product
development initiatives and innovation potential. This is particularly important
to be able to introduce new products and services to the marketplace in the short
duration of time. Moreover, a clear distinction between engineering groups and
business functions, as illustrated in figure above, is an indication of the
technology giant ‘s focus on business directions under engineering groups such as
cloud and artificial intelligence.
Secondly, organizational restructuring eliminates bureaucracy in business
processes and procedures to a great extent, increasing the flexibility of the
business to adapt to changes in the external marketplace.
Thirdly, the initiative resulted in the elimination of approximately 7,400
positions, thus saving considerable amount of financial resources that can be
 channelled for new product development and increasing the competiveness of the
business in many other ways.
Another important aspect of corporate culture at Microsoft refers to a high level
of dynamism. Specifically, the CEO of the tech giant Satya Nadella is continuing
with simplification and de-layering initiative of Microsoft operations in the global
scale and these initiatives are expected to further impact Microsoft organizational
culture.
Microsoft Corporation Report contains
a full analysis of Microsoft
organizational structure. The report illustrates the application of the
major analytical strategic frameworks in business studies such as
SWOT, PESTEL, Porter’s Five Forces, Value Chain analysis, Ansoff
Matrix and McKinsey 7S Model on Microsoft. Moreover, the report
contains analyses of Microsoft leadership, business strategy and
organizational culture. The report also comprises discussions of
Microsoft marketing strategy, ecosystem and addresses issues of
corporate social responsibility.

https://research-methodology.net/microsoft-organizational-structure-divisional-structure-with-focus-
on-innovation/

xamining the Leadership Style

of Microsoft CEO, Satya
Nadella





by Maren Fox
February 22, 2019
Satya Nadella is a leader on the rise—for the last five years, he’s
served as the CEO of Microsoft, quickly earning a name for
himself in the world beyond tech. Because of his alternative
approach to leadership, which BK is all about, we took a deep
dive into what makes Nadella so special and why he’s a leader to
look out for. In his short time as CEO, Nadella has overseen and
driven outstanding growth and profits—even more impressive
considering this is Microsoft, already a giant in the business world
and creators of Windows and Xbox.
So how did he do it? And what can his leadership tell us about how
current and future leaders can go from good to great—or better yet,
great to the unimaginable? In short, Nadella believes in the power
of positive leadership and uses terms such as “growth mindset”
and “empathy” that are reinforced by action. As we’ve seen before
with leaders who upend command-and-control leadership
styles, positive leadership is just one style that can influence
a thriving workplace culture where employees feel inspired and
trusting, motivated by purpose, and ready to work with others to
achieve common goals.
Naturally, we were like a moth to a flame when learning of Nadella
and his ideals. He embraces leadership outside the norm, which
aligns with the BK mission to completely revolutionize leadership to
create a world that works for all. And it seems the feeling could be
mutual because Nadella has acknowledged one of BK’s bestselling
books, Driver in the Driverless Car by technologist Vivek
Wadhwa.
Here’s a closer look at Satya Nadella and how he can be an
inspiration for affecting change in your own organization.

The Microsoft Transformation

Nadella took over as CEO of Microsoft in 2014. At the time, the
mega-giant’s stock price had slowed, with mobile technology cutting
into traditional computers’ influence and Apple and Google enjoying
surging profits. Microsoft wasn’t losing money by any means, but it
was in danger of losing a bit of the relevance it had built over the
previous three decades.

From the technology side, Nadella immediately announced an

intention to prioritize mobile and cloud. "He made a pronouncement
on day one—the world is about cloud first, mobile first," said
Microsoft Chairman John Thompson in an article reported by CNBC.
"He never mentioned Windows one time."
 Along with this significant shift in product focus, Nadella also set
expectations around how he wanted the Microsoft leadership culture
—and, therefore, the culture of the organization—to shift. He placed
an intentionally greater emphasis on empathy, individual
empowerment, positivity, and growth.

As the story goes, Nadella’s strategies have more than paid

off. Today, Microsoft has grown in value by $250 billion and is
the world’s fourth-most valuable company. It also has become
a serious force in the cloud computing industry since the first day
when Nadella said the company would aim its resources that way—
which can be a huge indicator of attracting and retaining emerging
top talent.

The Nadella Style

In an Inc. interview with Nadella, he offers three things every great
leader should create:
 Clarity
 Energy
 Success, no matter the circumstances

Nadella is also a proponent of the growth mindset philosophy,

exploring how individuals and teams can develop and thrive rather
than what’s holding them back. This philosophy is why he believes
success, or key learnings, can be found in any situation. A culture
with a growth mindset “requires us to truly understand and share
the feelings of another person,” he wrote in an email to Microsoft
employees.
If Nadella’s concepts sound familiar, it’s because they are in sync
with many of the business philosophies espoused by Berrett-Koehler
authors. His positive outlook, for example, is similar to what Kim
Cameron advocates for in  Practicing Positive Leadership: Tools
and Techniques That Create Extraordinary Results.
Cameron writes,

 
Practicing positive leadership involves more than the personal
pursuit of excellence or the demonstration of individual capabilities.
 … Organizations have multiple constituencies that must be
addressed; processes, routines, and structures that have to be
considered; and cultures, embedded values, and traditions that
need to be respected. Employee preferences and relationships must
be taken into account, and competitors and customers must be
acknowledged.

 
Like Nadella, Cameron highlights the importance of empathy and
acknowledges the effect positive leaders can have on their
employees and the subsequent effect empowered employees have
upon the entire organization.

Transforming Your Leadership

Style
The culture change at Microsoft, spearheaded by Nadella, is
impressive to say the least, but any organization and any leader can
achieve a transformation that inspires people and increases
productivity. All you need to do is to decide to get started, which can
simply mean figuring out how to ask the right kind of question.

One strategy that’s becoming increasingly popular with leaders and

managers that also embraces a growth mindset is appreciative
inquiry, a framework that—like another beloved leadership style,
servant leadership—has been around for years. This concept,
which lies at the core of Building Resilience with Appreciative
Inquiry: A Leadership Journey through Hope, Despair, and
Forgiveness, focuses on what’s working well and prioritizes inquiry
as the main way to continuously identify what’s working, even when
it feels like nothing is (hint: there’s always something to be learned
with appreciative inquiry!). Authors Joan McArthur-Blair and Jeanie
Cockell write, “The incredible power in appreciative inquiry is that it
seeks to uplift, motivate, and move organizations and people
forward. Being a resilient leader is not about lingering in a particular
state of being but rather always attempting to find the questions,
the actions, or the reflections that promote forward movement.”
You’re not imagining it: appreciative inquiry sounds eerily similar to
the growth mindset embraced by Nadella. These and plenty of other
dynamic and introspective approaches are gaining popularity, and
all reside under a general umbrella of positive leadership. Not sure
where to start? No worries—we’ve got a recommended reading list
for aspiring servant leaders (another leadership styles that
values positivity, service, and empathy) and another for new
managers.
The best part of emerging leadership styles is that you don’t need to
be the CEO of Microsoft to embark on a transformation. Nadella’s
philosophy has garnered plenty of attention because of the $800
billion company he’s applied it to, but his passion is achievable by
anyone committed to changing and improving their organization.
Your proactive leadership might not make headlines just yet,
but it will deliver an impact on your colleagues, the employees you
oversee, and the customers you reach—and even the organizations
and communities you’re a part of. Win-win-win! 
https://ideas.bkconnection.com/examining-the-leadership-style-of-microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella

t was March 27, 2014, and Satya Nadella was about to make his first public appearance
as CEO of Microsoft. The tone, he knew, would be important.

Nadella’s predecessor, Steve Ballmer, was famous for making public appearances

feel epic. At a 1991 meeting in Japan, he seemed to injure his vocal chords because he
was screaming “Windows” with such force. In 2000, when Microsoft celebrated its 25th
anniversary, Ballmer reportedly popped out of a giant cake. And in 2013, when he
announced he was stepping down, he bid farewell to 13,000 Microsoft employees as
“(I’ve had) The Time of My Life” blared through the speakers of Key Arena in Seattle.
Through tears, the 6’5” Ballmer shouted, “Soak it in all of you. You work for the greatest
company in the world.”

Nadella was not that kind of CEO.

A 5’11”, cricket-loving engineer from Hyderabad, India, Nadella had built a reputation

as a mild-mannered manager who spent his free time taking online classes on
neuroscience and reading poetry. The previous month, he had become CEO of the
world’s fourth most valuable company, but the Microsoft he inherited was a far cry from
the one he had joined in 1992.

For one thing, Microsoft had just paid $7.2 billion to acquire Nokia’s mobile business, a
deal Nadella had voted against as a member of the senior leadership team because, as he
explains in his autobiography, he “did not get why the world needed the third ecosystem
in phones.” The Windows phone had a mere 4% market share, sipping on the dregs left
over from Apple and Google.

But on that day in March, Nadella was not thinking about how to integrate Nokia’s
33,000 employees into his team. He was about to make an announcement that would
set a precedent for his tenure as CEO.

Microsoft was going to release a version of its signature software suite—Microsoft Office
—on the iPad, bucking Microsoft’s reputation for not collaborating with rivals. (As the
keynote speaker at Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference two years later, Nadella used an
iPhone during a product demo, a sight that would’ve been unimaginable in the Ballmer
era.)

For this announcement, though, there was not much pomp and circumstance. The
company rented out a small room in a San Francisco event space. It was an intimate
setting, filled mostly with journalists and a few Microsoft employees. There Nadella was
in the heart of Silicon Valley, in his first public appearance as CEO, about to start a
partnership with one of his company’s sworn enemies.

However, on the morning of the event, Nadella and his team were not worried about
what he was about to say. They were worried about where he was going to say it.

The room was set up with a two-meter tall stage from which Nadella could speak down
to the audience. But Nadella and his team didn’t want to send the message that he was a
supreme ruler, bestowing the plebeians with his presence.

Before he spoke, he wanted to shorten the stage.

Shortening the stage has become an apt metaphor for Nadella’s tenure as Microsoft’s
chief executive. He has, by and large, shifted the spotlight away from the pulpit and onto
the masses. Since taking over as CEO five years ago this February, Microsoft’s share
price has tripled. Last November, its market capitalization briefly passed Apple’s,
temporarily making Microsoft the most valuable company in the world.
The company has made notable acquisitions of the popular game Minecraft, the
developer platform Github, and the social network LinkedIn. And it has successfully
repositioned itself—going from a “devices and services” company to a “mobile and
cloud” company.

But if you ask Nadella how he reinvented Microsoft in half a decade, he won’t talk about
the cloud computing or the billion-dollar acquisitions. For him, changing the direction
of a ship carrying 130,000 employees could only be done by changing the culture on
board.
Confronting the culture of
Microsoft

MICROSOFT
Three kings.

In 2011, Manu Cornet, a designer famous for his satirical cartoons about tech, posted a
mock Microsoft org chart on his personal blog that went viral. The chart consisted of
different departments all pointing guns at each other. According to the dozen current
and former Microsoft employees we spoke to for this article, the satire was glazed in a
heavy coat of truth.
MANU COMET (CREATIVE COMMONS) VIA WWW.BONKERSWORLD.NET
A bit of satire.

Perhaps no system encapsulated Microsoft’s old culture of competition better than the
company’s performance review system. In certain departments, managers were asked to
assign a number one through five to each member of their team. According to employees
who worked at the company during the Ballmer era, managers were encouraged to
assign a certain number of fours and fives (the worst numbers), in a sort of implicit
quota system.

“Even if you had an all-star team, you still had to put someone in the five bucket,” an
engineering manager who asked not to be named told Quartz. “The number became a
permanent scar on [the employee’s] record that would impact things like their ability to
change teams.”

Ballmer’s Microsoft was also famous for not playing well with others. In an interview
with the Chicago Sun-Times in 2001, Ballmer called Linux, an open-source operating
system and popular Windows alternative, ”a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual
property sense to everything it touches.”

The open-source concept, or the idea that software should be shared publicly for others
to use, was popular among programmers who believed collaboration was key to
technological progress. But Microsoft’s posture seemed to value its own bottom line over
the collectivist ethos popular among the web’s early pioneers.

David Golds, an engineer who left Microsoft in 2012 after 14 years with the company,
decided to rejoin in 2017 under the new regime. “What changed was leadership, and
everything followed from that,” he says. “There was a tearing down of walls for software
developers and tearing down of walls in the physical office.”

But before Nadella began redesigning the internal review process or physical campus,
his first order of business was to redefine the company’s mission. Microsoft co-founder
Bill Gates’ famous mantra of “a computer on every desk” was no longer resonant for a
21st-century enterprise tech company.

Nadella needed to give the company a new north star.

MICROSOFT
Nadella’s “Day 1” speech from Microsoft’s Studio D atrium.

At 6:02 am Pacific time, five and a half months after he took over as CEO, Nadella sent
out an email with Microsoft’s new raison d’etre.

Microsoft existed to “empower every person and every organization on the planet to
achieve more.” Though vague enough to deserve a place in the pantheon of corporate
sweet nothings, the new mission offered a semantic shift that would define Microsoft for
the five years that followed: It would become a people company instead of a product
company.
Embracing a growth
mindset
Apart from Nadella, the person most responsible for Microsoft’s cultural shift might be a
Stanford psychology professor named Carol Dweck.

Nadella credits Dweck’s 2007 book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success with

defining his philosophy on company culture. Ask any Microsoft employee and they’ll be
able to sum up Nadella’s philosophy in two words: growth mindset.

The phrase, an important component of Dweck’s scholarship, suggests that intelligence

and talent are not fixed traits and that the true mark of success is one’s ability to learn.
At Microsoft, it has become a sort of internal rallying cry. The walls of the company’s
Redmond, Washington, headquarters campus are filled with inspirational quotes about
“inviting in new ideas” and “fostering curiosity.”
MICROSOFT
Microsoft messaging.

Growth mindset has been revolutionary at Microsoft not because it is a revolutionary

idea in and of itself, but because of how profoundly it differs from what Microsoft valued
in the past.

In the past, clinging to the idea that, say, Microsoft needed a phone or Microsoft needed
an MP3 player led the company to continue investing in products that the market
decidedly didn’t want. On the culture side, employees were hesitant to surface new ideas
for fear of breaking from the charted course.

Emily Orrson, a marketer on the Minecraft team, remembers a line from the first speech
she heard Nadella make. “He said, ‘If you don’t like your job, tell your manager,’ and I
remember thinking that I could finally be honest about how I wanted to grow.”
“We went from a culture of know-it-alls to a culture of learn-it-alls,” says Chris
Capossela, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer. “Everything we do now is rooted in a
growth mindset.”

You see growth mindset reflected in product decisions—like the company’s investment
in HoloLens, Microsoft’s augmented-reality glasses that began as a moonshot project
with a high risk of failure. You see it reflected in the promotion of continuous learning.
(Nadella, for example, sends out video blogs to the company discussing the books that
he’s reading.) And you see it reflected in the company’s internal practices, like the
company’s new performance-review structure.

But as much as growth mindset is about innovation, it is also about learning from
mistakes. In 2014, not long after he took over as CEO, Nadella was interviewed at a
conference in Phoenix, Arizona, celebrating women in computing. Harvey Mudd College
president Maria Klawe, who is on the Microsoft board, asked Nadella what advice he
had for women who didn’t feel comfortable asking for a raise.

“It’s not really about asking for a raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will
give you the right raise,” Nadella responded, essentially telling the 7,500 female
engineers in attendance to trust a system that systematically pays women 80 cents for
every dollar made by their male counterparts.

“I answered that question completely wrong,” Nadella wrote in an internal memo to
employees, posted later that day. The misstep showed that even a thoughtful leader like
Nadella has his blind spots. The beauty of the growth mindset, though, is that you can
let a mistake become a learning opportunity.

However, when it comes to gender diversity, Nadella’s company still has a long way to
go. Microsoft is the only one of the big five technology companies to employ less than
30% women. Though the acquisition of LinkedIn helped boost the percentage of
women from 25.5% in 2017 to 26.6% in 2018, the overall numbers are little changed
from where they were when Nadella took over as CEO.
But Nadella has arguably bought himself some time on the issue, if only by generating
goodwill with the other changes he’s brought to Microsoft’s culture.

One Week
Perhaps no change is more indicative of Microsoft’s new values than the annual
employee meeting Nadella began convening in 2014. Every August, all of Microsoft’s
employees are invited to Washington for a week-long gathering aptly called One Week.
MICROSOFT
Nadella speaking at One Week 2018.

The week is dotted with different company expos, presentations, and Q+A’s with
Microsoft’s senior executives, but the highlight is a three-day hackathon where
employees are encouraged to work on projects—either in-person or remotely—that fall
outside of their day-to-day tasks. In 2017, more than 18,000 people in 4,000 cities and
75 countries participated.

Like a college graduation, giant tents are erected on the company’s Redmond campus.
Nadella strolls through the hundreds of project spaces, sampling demos like a tourist at
a farmer’s market.

Computer interfaces controlled by eye moment, adaptive controllers for the Xbox,

and artificial intelligence for the visually impaired are just three of the many projects
conceived at the hackathon that have since been rolled out to the public.

The hackathon is most notable, though, for what it reflects about its host. In many ways,
it’s a microcosm of all the ways Microsoft has changed since Nadella has taken over:
thousands of employees from across different departments, working together to
experiment, learn, and build. No longer is Microsoft an amalgam of warring city-states,
competing for resources and recognition. The company has dropped its proverbial guns.
REUTERS/ROBERT GALBRAITH
Nadella—with Apple products!—in his first public appearance as Microsoft CEO.

At Nadella’s first appearance as CEO, that Office for iPad event back in 2014, he
borrowed from T.S. Eliot to describe his goal for the company’s future: “You should
never cease from exploration, and at the end of all exploration, you arrive where you
started and know the place for the very first time.”

The quote has aged well. At the time, the board had just concluded a six-month search
for a new CEO. Many thought they would look to external candidates—after all, the
company was in danger of fading into irrelevance and needed a substantial change to
correct course. Ford CEO Alan Mulally, Qualcomm COO (now CEO) Steve Mollenkopf,
and Nokia CEO Stephen Elop were largely thought to be frontrunners in the race.

The decision to appoint Nadella, an internal candidate who had already been with the
company for more than two decades, came as a surprise to many. He had no CEO
experience, was steeped in Microsoft tradition, and was an engineer first and foremost.

But Nadella’s genius was knowing that if Microsoft wanted to change, it had to start
from within.

Read pieces from our field guide to Microsoft here:

 A complete guide to Microsoft’s comeback

 Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on his toughest challenges and biggest competitors
  How Steve Ballmer played a powerful part in Microsoft’s comeback

 Bill Gates on the balance between data privacy and innovation

Stay up-to-date with Quartz at Work on Twitter

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Leadership During Microsoft's

Turnaround

Rick MillerContributor 
Entrepreneurs

I’m a turnaround specialist who writes about the power in people.




CEO Satya Nadellaand his team have achieved what many believed to be impossible. In less than
five years since he took the helm, he and his employees at Microsoft have completely reversed
the company’s trajectory and built a company that today is more valuable than Apple.
Microsoft’s turnaround was beautifully executed.

How did they do it and what could you learn from their approach?

Getty Royalty Free

 GETTY

In my view, by focusing on two critical constituencies—customers and employees—Microsoft

also took care of a third critical constituency—their shareowners.

Customers

When Nadella took over, customers were unhappy primarily with Microsoft’s products.
Windows 8 was a disaster, the iPhone and Android were beating Windows phones badly in the
market, and Bing was not viewed as a viable alternative to Google for searches.

Nadella and his team made several strategic product shifts to right the ship and regain lost market
share.

First, they improved the quality of their current product offers (Windows).
Today In: Leadership

Second, Microsoft committed to a partnering strategy to expand the market for their current
products, including offering Microsoft Outlook on Apple (iPhone and iPad) and Android
devices.

Next, they built new products to compete in their markets, introducing their first laptop ever
(Microsoft Surface Book).

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Finally, they entered entirely new strategic markets quickly via acquisitions, including the $26
billion purchase of LinkedIn.

Employees

When Nadella took the reins, he inherited a dis-spirited employee base that needed his attention.

Nadella and his team made several strategic shifts with the company’s human capital that others
should look at as a play-book for unlocking innovation.

Values

His specific leadership style set the tone from the top. It emphasizes continuous learning and
risk-taking. But he also doubled down on reinforcing the company’s values:

 Innovation– encourage new ideas from everyone

 Diversity and inclusion – maximize every person’s contribution with diversity in all areas

 Corporate social responsibility –be transparent, and respectful of human rights

 Philanthropies – empower people by investing technology, money, employee talent,

and the company’s voice in programs that promote digital inclusion

 Environment – lead the way in sustainability and use our technologies to minimize the
impact of our operations and products

 Trustworthy computing – deliver secure, private, and reliable computing experiences

based on sound business practices.
Leadership

Nadella also clearly communicated his expectation that every employee played a leadership role
at Microsoft. But there was a problem. His early investigation showed the company had over 100
different attributes tied to the word “leadership” depending on where you sat in the company. So
he enlisted a diverse team of leaders to simplify the definition. Here it is:

Create clarity:

 Synthesize the complex

 Define a course of action

 Ensure shared understanding

Generate energy:

 Inspire optimism, creativity, and growth

 Create an environment where everyone does their best work

 Build organizations that are stronger tomorrow than today

Deliver success:

 Drive innovation that people love

 Be boundary-less in seeking solutions

 Tenaciously pursue the right outcomes

Engagement

Nadella is credited for having “made Microsoft cool again.” How did he do this? Not by
focusing employees on “being cool,” but rather on “making others cool.” By shifting the focus
outward, he was able to create what I call viral engagement. It worked.

In addition, Nadella built a new culture at Microsoft by encouraging a growth mindset, or the
understanding that abilities and intelligence can be developed. In other words, he encouraged a
learn-it-all mindset rather than a know-it-all mindset. This made it much easier for Chiefs at
every level to emerge.

With intense focus on both customers and employees, another beneficiary of the team’s work are
its shareowners. Today, in 2018, Microsoft's stock price has almost tripled from when Nadella
first took over.

What could your company learn from the lessons at Microsoft?

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is, generally, known as a level-headed guy. It
seems to take a lot to get a rise out of him, though it does happen, from time
to time.

In his new book, "Hit Refresh," the chief executive offers his account of what
it's been like to try to reform Microsoft's culture after years of in-fighting and
stagnation. That's no easy feat, and Nadella recounts how he was
occasionally forced to get tough in order to get the message across. 

A particularly enlightening anecdote relates to a pillar of Nadella's cultural

reform: the "growth mindset." This is the notion that you should take nothing
for granted and always be willing to check your assumptions as new data
comes in. It's been a hallmark of Nadella's leadership style since he took the
top job in January 2014. 

Not everybody fully understood what he was getting at, though. In his book,
Nadella writes of a Microsoft executive who came to him, boasting of how
much he loved the "growth mindset" idea -- and started complaining about
other executives, by name, who weren't getting with the program.

"This guy was just using growth mindset to find a new way to complain about
others," writes Nadella. "This is not what we had in mind." 

Rose petals in the manure

So Nadella gathered 150 of his top executives and gave them an ultimatum: "I
told these high-potential leaders that once you become a vice president, a
partner in this endeavor, the whining is over. You can't say the coffee around
here is bad, or there aren't enough good people, or I didn't get the bonus." 

"'To be a leader in this company, your job is to find the rose petals in a pile of
shit,'" Nadella says he told these executives. He admits it was "perhaps not
my best line of poetry." 

The idea, Nadella writes, was to remind his team that the job of a leader isn't
to dwell on constraints, because there are always constraints. Instead, leaders
are the "champions of overcoming constraints," keeping the team's eyes on
the prize. 

This actually seems like this is kind of a sore spot for Nadella: Elsewhere in
the book, he writes about the importance of individual empowerment,
encouraging people to take responsibility for the contributions they can make. 

Nadella writes about a time he got "irritated" when a Microsoft employee used
a Q&A session to ask him directly why he couldn't use a printer with a certain
app. "'Make it happen. You have full authority,'" Nadella says he told the
employee "politely."

This post originally appeared on Business Insider.

 https://www.studocu.com/en/
document/northern-alberta-institute-of-
technology/communication/mandatory-
assignments/bill-gates-management-
style/2834210/view
9 Bill Gates Leadership Style
Traits, Skills and Qualities
Bill Gates is an interesting study when looking at leadership styles. He is the
antithesis of what one would expect from a leader. He dropped out of school,
pursued a dream, and took risks based on his personal knowledge and
creativity instead of what others had taught him.

Those risks paid off for Gates. He often trades spots with Jeff Bezos as the
richest person in the world.

His leadership style is one that would be included in the descriptions of a

transformational leader. That is because he followed a strong vision, had
passion for the work he was doing, and that emotion helped to energize the
people who would start following him.

Key Attributes of Transformational Leadership

Bill Gates focused on transformational leadership because that style came
naturally to him. He could adapt to other types of leadership when the need
arose, but for the most part, his time at Microsoft was dominated by this
leadership style.

The qualities of a transformational leader include the following points of

emphasis.

 There is a desire to encourage personal creativity in oneself and the

rest of the team.
 Support and encouragement are provided at the individual level instead
of focusing this resource on team-based perspectives.
 Motivation is individualized and inspirational, with clear communication
coming from the leader to promote a specific path toward an end result.
The development of trust from followers, which leads to respect, because
there is evidence provided that the ideas being implemented will actually
work.

It is because of these qualities that many of the people who started working
for Gates began to emulate his leadership style.
Traits of the Bill Gates Leadership Style
There are 6 clear traits that are a fundamental part of how Bill Gates
approaches the concept of leadership.

1. Focus
Knowing something is much different than having wisdom. Gates focuses on
the one thing he knows best, which is software, and then he makes it the best
it can become. He worked hard to dominate his industry, made execution a
top priority, and stuck with the skills that he considered to be his strongest.
You can still see this focus through the work he does with his charitable
foundation.
2. Big Picture
Gates also takes a practical approach to setting goals. He has a big picture
that he keeps in mind. Instead of creating a vision that is unapproachable,
Gates uses a step-based approach to make progress toward his vision. It’s
like trying to walk up a staircase. With this leadership style, you’re taking one
step at a time instead of trying to jump from the bottom to the top.
3. Creativity
Instead of staying in a zone of comfort, Gates encouraged himself and his
people to embrace creativity. His leadership style works to empower people
because individual perspectives create new opportunities to explore ideas.
Although some people followed him because of the charisma he exudes,
many people followed Gates because they knew he could help them
transform themselves into better leaders too.
4. Caring
Even though Gates is often listed as one of the richest people in the world, he
is also one of the most prolific givers to philanthropic causes in the world
today. In 2010, Gates (with Warren Buffett) promised to give away a majority
of his wealth. Over $28 billion has been donated to his foundation, with the
goal of giving away $90 billion in time. That caring attitude was also present in
the workplace, making sure people had the best possible opportunity to find
success if they wanted it.
5. Education
Bill Gates may have dropped out of school, but that doesn’t mean he ignores
what a good education is able to provide. Learning is a lifelong process under
his leadership style. There is always something new to learn every day if one
is willing to look for it in their life. Even after he helped to found Microsoft and
built it into a software empire, Gates was working on his public speaking skills,
his communication skills, and ways that he could improve social interactions
with others.
6. Passionate
Love Microsoft products or hate them, there is no denying the fact that Gates
put a lot of love into everything he did for the company. Even if the only thing
he needed to do was write a thank you note, you were guaranteed a message
that came straight from his heart. Like many transformational leaders, the
belief of Bill Gates is that if something is worth doing, then it is worth doing to
the best of one’s ability.
Weaknesses of the Bill Gates Leadership Style
No one is perfect. Every leader makes mistakes from time to time. Leaders
have specific weaknesses which they must identify to work on as well. To
ignore one’s weaknesses is a sign that they are not yet ready to take on the
responsibility of leadership.

Here are the key weaknesses that Gates has identified as being part of his
overall leadership perspective.

1. Arrogance
When a person is passionate and knowledgeable about a subject, there is a
fine line that is walked between cockiness and arrogance. Gates
communicates opinions or ideas that he feels are correct. If he feels like his
idea is the best solution, then that is the idea which is pursued. Should that
idea not pan out, then his approach to the work can become a weakness,
especially if there are other ideas presented to consider.
2. Results-Driven
Most transformational leaders look for outcomes over processes. Bill Gates is
one of the few exceptions to this rule. Although he was often results-driven,
taking an approach sometimes where the “ends justified the means,” there
were times when the logical steps of progression were ignored. He became so
focused on obtaining the goals that he’d set for himself and his team that he
lost track of those steps.
3. Conflict Avoidance
Transformational leaders want to get people onto the same page. The goal is
to have the entire team focused on reaching a specific goal, mission, or vision.
When you push people hard, there are times when those folks will begin to
push back. Gates would often avoid conflict whenever he could, rather than
confront the situation head-on, because the act of conflict made him
uncomfortable. When there is an unwillingness to confront an issue, it
becomes possible for negative energy to explode and cover a team with its
influence.
Being a leader like Bill Gates is not always easy. You must be willing to take
risks. There must be a personal desire to transform the workplace into a
creative safe-haven where forward progress is a top priority. Include a little
patience and you’ll find a recipe for leadership success.

) Leadership style
Autocratic style

Control is basis to Gates’ nature and his management practice. He an obsession with
detail and which choking up for example, he used to sign expenses for his right hand
man (steve ballmer). He is trying to monopolize the World Wide Web software market
and has bad legal problems with the department of justice. Microsoft restricted the
ability of its internet partners to deal with its rivals. Also he dislikes complaints.

Delegate style

Bill Gates give special attention to recruit and retain the best talent in the software
industry and he believed that from the recruitment of talented software engineers was
one of the most critical elements in the software industry. Gates looked for a collection
of attributes in recruits and these included the capacity to grasp new knowledge quickly,
deep skill with programming structure and the ability to ask the interested questions.
From that, a great number of potential recruits applied for job at Microsoft he found
that the bet talent would never apply directly. As a result, Microsoft’s HR managers had
to look for the bets talent and offer their job. Give autonomy to his manager, his
delegate’s authority to managers to run their independent department.

3.1.2 Management style

Management is regarded as relating to people working within a structured organization
and with prescribed roles. To people outside of the organization the manager might not
necessarily be seen in a leadership role Laurie J. Mullins (2005). From that, Gates’
forethought and vision related on personal computing have been vital to the success of
Microsoft and in the software industry. Gates is aggressively involved in key
management and strategic decisions at Microsoft and his play an important role in the
technical development of new products Thocp.net (2010). Thus, he have committed in
the meeting with customers and staying in contact with Microsoft employees around
the world by email.

Bill has succeeded to show and always change his company based on in markets which
vary and great administration techniques carried out. Microsoft has constantly been
rated as one of the most admired companies. The concept of stock options owes a part
of its popularity to their successful implementation at Microsoft. His company has
enjoyed the current stock market boom thanks partly to his good management.

3.2) Comparison the roles and responsibilities of Bill Gates’ during the
implementation of strategies with Toyota company CEO
According Useem M. (2004) states that a few study of statistics have compared
companies where two persons hold CEO and seat place with companies where one
person hold both post. This research also took into consider other factors that, could
affect the performance finance and show whether a company make or does not
separate CEO and chairman.

According the Dell.com (2010) Michael Dell, born in February 1965, is the chairman of
the board of directors and chief executive officer of Dell and the company he founded in
1984 with $1,000 and an extraordinary idea to build relationships directly with
customers. In 1992, Michael became the youngest CEO ever to earn a ranking on the
Fortune 500 and Dell Chairman and CEO Michael Dell today have give emphasis to the
serious role in the information technology and from that he also the entrepreneurial
leadership by helping the organization to achieve the long term success.

BILL GATES’
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Corporation

Michael Dell
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dell Computers

ROLES
Gates’foresight and vision regarding personal computing have been central to the
success of Microsoft and the software industry. Gates is actively involved in key
management and strategic decisions at Microsoft, and plays an important role in the
technical development of new products. Much of his time is devoted to meeting with
customers and staying in contact with Microsoft employees around the world through
e-mail.

According Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (2010) Dell Chairman and CEO Michael Dell today
emphasized the critical role of information technology (IT) and Dell chairman have an
entrepreneurial though leadership by helping the organization to maintain the
successful of company and his achieve that for long term benefit.
 RESPONSIBILITIES
His current responsibilities are also including the global technology policy and a
diversity of technical and business incubation activities.

The company announced a two-year transition process to ensure that there is a smooth
and orderly transfer of Gates’ daily responsibilities, and said that after July 2008 Gates
would continue to serve as the company’s chairman and an advisor on key development
projects.

Segmentation allowed executives to move into positions of manageable, if fewer,

responsibilities. The challenge of segmentation involved sustaining a sense of common
goals. To unify a large organization of people with diverse responsibilities, Dell believed
that each individual needed to understand his or her role in contributing to overall
success.

Bill Gates: Entrepreneur, Manager,

and Leader
 B V Krishnamurthy
JUNE 27, 2008
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Today marks the last working day for Bill Gates at Microsoft. So much has
been written and spoken about him that another column appears redundant.
Some people may even feel a tinge of happiness that they no longer have to
contend with the ruthless businessman that Gates has been portrayed as.
The purpose of this post is to analyze what can be learned by young people
from perhaps the most successful entrepreneur of our times.
• Focus: Bill Gates has demonstrated over nearly thirty years the
importance of clarity of thought and execution. Unlike many of his
contemporaries, he did not move away from the domain he understood
better than anything else – software. He has pursued the objective of
dominance in software in general and operating systems in particular that
has few parallels. Venturing into unfamiliar territory may be fashionable but
carries a high degree of risk. If ever a need arises for an absolute example
for what Peters and Waterman called “Stick to the Knitting” and Hamel and
Prahalad termed core competence, one needs to look no further than Bill
Gates and Microsoft. Focus also means the ability to pursue one’s goals
whatever the obstacles may be. Such a degree of perseverance is hard to
come by.

• Thinking big: Along with focus, the ability to dream big and pursue that
with single-minded determination sets Gates apart from other entrepreneurs.
This is particularly true of entrepreneurs from emerging economies like India
where an ultra-conservative attitude has stifled growth. Entrepreneurs need
to develop confidence in themselves and their team that they can take on
the world and come out winners.

• Passion: Simply put, if anything is worth doing, it is worth doing well. From
a simple thank you note to a complex proposal, it is critical to place the
stamp of excellence on whatever one undertakes. Equally important is the
need to constantly innovate. Change is the only constant and the more agile
and adaptive we are to change, the more successful we can be.

• Learning as a life-long process: Though dropping out of college to his

dreams, Bill Gates has probably read and written more than most of us ever
will. In the process, he has shown the limits of formal education. Important
as formal education is, perhaps it is more important to realize that learning is
a life-long process. Knowledge is infinite. Even if we keep assimilating it
without a break throughout a lifetime, we would not have scratched the
surface. Knowledge should lead to humility and wisdom – not arrogance and
one-upmanship.

• Giving back to society: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has
provided a new dimension to philanthropy by addressing issues that are
global in nature – malaria, cancer, AIDS. Feeling good by doing good may
appear old-fashioned but this may yet be the best way forward in combating
diseases that kill or maim millions of people every year. With friend and
legendary investor Warren Buffet also joining hands, a formidable
combination has been forged. Bill Gates has shown a remarkable degree of
consistency both in his business goals and in his goals in philanthropy – he is
a global citizen.
Although some Indian entrepreneurs have indeed espoused similar causes –
Infosys Foundation, Azim Premji Foundation, and the House of Tata come to
mind, a lot more can be done by successful Indian entrepreneurs. In fact, just
5% of the wealth of the 200 richest people can eradicate some of the most
pressing problems that we face. Wealth should not be merely in terms of
building the most flamboyant homes but in pursuing a higher calling. Where
is the collective conscience of the rich who hav made it big due to the
society that they are a part of?

As with any successful or great person, there will always be controversies. In

an age where the distinction between means and ends is increasingly
blurred, taking extreme positions hardly helps. One may not agree with
Gates’ means for achieving what he has, but one would find it difficult to
ignore his contributions to the IT industry. However, history and posterity will
probably recognize him more for what he has decided to do – at a relatively
young age – for the rest of his life. Combating hunger, fighting disease and
educating the poor are truly lofty goals worth emulating by anyone who
cares for humanity and for the quality of life on this planet. On this count,
there cannot be many role models better than Bill Gates. The last thirty
years have seen the emergence of an entrepreneur par excellence. The next
thirty years will probably see the emergence of the greatest individual
philanthropist – not necessarily in monetary terms – but in terms of the
global issues addressed with dedication.

How Bill Gates Became a Leadership Legend

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John Rampton

VIP CONTRIBUTOR
Entrepreneur and Connector

     
September 9, 2016 6 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

This Entrepreneur.com "Best Read" was originally posted Sept. 15, 2015.

The born-a-leader/become-a-leader argument that has carried on for decades is refreshed with

each extraordinary leader who takes the stage. The rise of Bill Gates is no different in terms of
debating the born/became conundrum. No one can say for sure if he was born to be a leader, but
his life’s work shows a pattern of actions that illustrate how he became a legend among historical
business leaders.

Pursuing what he loves.

Gates was fascinated by computers when he was young and spent most of his time learning how
to program. Although he wasn’t a model student, Gates decided it was important to pursue what
he was passionate about. That led to many breakthroughs in computers, including the
programming language BASIC and, later the MS-DOS program for IBM. It was only a matter of
time until his love for computers became the foundation for Microsoft.

If you have to work, make sure it is something you truly love doing. Don't get stuck in an
industry that does not interest you. It’s hard to imagine creating a strategy or inspiring others as a
leader in an industry that just doesn’t ignite a passion inside you. If you are just in it for the
money, it will show. However, when doing what you love you can enjoy every day and want to
go to work, but you are also more likely to become successful.

Related: Why You Should Pursue Your Dream Even If Nobody Encourages You
Working tirelessly.

Gates knew success doesn't happen overnight but is, and always will be, the culmination of a lot
of hard work. Fueled by his passion, he spent years working from his garage, developing coding
and programming, and learning how to create a solution with global reach. This took seemingly
endless hours.

A leader gets in there and rolls his sleeves up because success it is not just about thinking up a
good idea. Leadership requires action and the passion to put the effort into turning that good idea
into a sustainable revenue machine. Even after Microsoft began gaining success, Gates worked
long days and nights on understanding the target audience and developing the products that
would speak to their business, education and consumer needs.

Looking forward.

No matter what happens, a legendary leader continues to look forward, unfazed by any barriers
or missteps along the way. Despite Gates’ phenomenal success, he did have to contend with anti-
trust litigation claiming that Microsoft was a monopoly. In 2011, after a 21-year battle in the
court system, the case was finally put to rest after numerous threats to break the company up.
Throughout the battle, Gates continued to pursue the strategy that he had laid out and stayed the
course, preferring to focus on the future rather than be distracted by present challenges. I
recommend staying ahead of trends and not behind them.

Constantly evolving.

Gates has never been someone to simply be satisfied with the success he has achieved to date. As
he has pointed out, “It's fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of
failure.” He also reminded others: “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of
learning.”

Gates never lets the Microsoft team become complacent, even when they held the market leader
position and were achieving multi-billion dollar revenues.

A leader should not be static; they should dynamic. Gates has become a legend by continuing to
evolve to stay relevant. He has always understood the market continues to shift in its needs and
desires. Gates knew that Microsoft, to maintain its leadership position, had to continually
reinvent itself, moving from just software packages for Office to a web browser and new
enterprise solutions. He led the pursuit to diversify the Microsoft product line and ingrained that
need in the organization’s culture.

As Gates said, “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and
underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into
inaction.”

Related: Tony Hawk on the Importance of Constantly Evolving

Helping others by giving back.

An admirable leader has taken charge to help others by guiding them in the right direction,
imparting knowledge, and experience, or even providing the necessary resources that will
improve the lives or careers of others. Gates has always taken a selfless approach to his
leadership, spending considerable money and time in philanthropic efforts to give to others. In
return, as a leader, he receives happiness by knowing he is providing benefits that can create the
leaders of the future who will then shape the planet for those generations to come.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated billions of dollars to causes all over the
world, making significant differences in the lives of children and adults. This level of giving
back illustrates Gates’ character and focus on social responsibility as a global corporate citizen.
It also shows that his pursuit of solutions and making life better went beyond just making a
profit. Instead, it was about driving significant change in the world that would make a difference
for those who need it the most. His legend status has now become more about what he has
accomplished on a social level than business. As Gates noted, “As we look ahead into the next
century, leaders will be those who empower others.”

Lessons to be learned.

Leaders have always been viewed as fundamentally different from other people. There are many
people who are smart, ambitious, and extroverted. However, it goes beyond these ingredients
that may be part of a person’s DNA.

For Gates, his parents encouraged him to think independently and provided a values system that
encouraged hard work, ethics, consideration for others and determination. Gates leveraged this
framework to become a legend based on the expert knowledge he pursued and collected, the
emotional intelligence he developed, the passion he developed for industries and communities,
the visionary ideas he proposed and executed on, the social network he created to mentor and
exchange with others and the personal power he passed onto others.

His leadership style is often described as transformational and serves as a model for many of
today’s entrepreneurs who are just as determined, focused and passionate about what they are
doing. Gates provides an excellent model of how transformational qualities can help create a
successful leader, but he also proves that the individual human spirit that all makes us unique and
the influence of parents and mentors also play a critical role in creating the legends.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250607

The world's richest man has mellowed over the years. Amassing a net worth of $56
billion while maturing into an altruistic elder statesman will do that to you.
But there was a time, during Bill Gates' early rise to tech superstardom, that the
Microsoft co-founder's hyper-competitive personality more closely resembled the
ruthless caricature of Steve Jobs than the affable, amiable image associated with Warren
Buffet.
Few anecdotes illustrate the relentless force of Gates' early will better than a detail he
divulged in a recent radio interview for BBC's "Desert Island Discs" program, which asks
famous guests to choose "eight pieces of music, a book, and a luxury item to take with
them on a desert island."
In his early years at Microsoft, Gates — once known for pulling all-nighters and crashing
on his office floor — was apparently not a big fan of downtime, for himself or anyone
else, he told interviewer Kristy Young.
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"I worked weekends, I didn't really believe in vacations," Gates said. "I had to be a little
careful not to try and apply my standards to how hard [others] worked. I knew
everybody's licence plate so I could look out at the parking lot and see, you know, when
people come in."
He added: "Eventually I had to loosen up as the company got to a reasonable size."
Bill Gates on dangers of artificial intelligence: ‘I don’t understand why some people
are not concerned’

Gates' unmatched drive and penchant for keeping a close eye on his employees was
confirmed in 2011 by Paul Allen in a first-person Vanity Fair article.
Allen, the Microsoft co-founder, described the early days of the company as a "high-
stress environment," where Gates "drove others as hard as he drove himself." Allen
referred to his former partner as a "taskmaster" who would "prowl" the parking lot on
weekends to document who had arrived at work.
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Not surprisingly, Gates' monitoring wasn't well-received.

"Bob Greenberg," Allen wrote, "a Harvard classmate of Bill's whom we'd hired, once put
in 81 hours in four days, Monday through Thursday, to finish part of the Texas
Instruments BASIC. When Bill touched base toward the end of Bob’s marathon, he
asked him, 'What are you working on tomorrow?'
"Bob said, 'I was planning to take the day off.'
"And Bill said, 'Why would you want to do that?' He genuinely couldn’t understand it; he
never seemed to need to recharge."
Apple co-founder on artificial intelligence: ‘The future is scary and very bad for people’

At the same time, Allen wrote, Gates respected people who aggressively pushed back,
overcoming their boss's skepticism and sometimes allowing both parties to arrive at an
unforeseen solution to a complex problem.
As Allen wrote:
Even relatively passive people learned to stand their ground and match their boss decibel for
decibel. They’d get right into his face: "What are you saying, Bill? I’ve got to write a compiler for
a language we’ve never done before, and it needs a whole new set of run-time routines, and you
think I can do it over the weekend? Are you kidding me?"
I saw this happen again and again. If you made a strong case and were fierce about it, and you
had the data behind you, Bill would react like a bluffer with a pair of threes. He’d look down and
mutter, "O.K., I see what you mean," then try to make up. Bill never wanted to lose talented
people. "If this guy leaves," he'd say to me, "we’ll lose all our momentum."
The authors of "Primal Leadership" wrote in the Harvard Business Review some years
ago that Gates was one of "those infamous corporate leaders who seem to have achieved
sterling business results despite their brutish approaches to leadership."
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"Skeptics," they noted, cite Gates "as a leader who gets away with a harsh style that
should theoretically damage his company."
But the opposite was true, they wrote: "Gates is the achievement-driven leader par
excellence, in an organization that has cherry-picked highly talented and motivated
people. His apparently harsh leadership style — baldly challenging employees to surpass
their past performance — can be quite effective when employees are competent,
motivated and need little direction — all characteristics of Microsoft’s engineers."

Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22. (Michel Euler/AP)

Allen wrote in Vanity Fair that Gates "thrived on conflict" and had no qualms about
provoking testy interactions with his underlings.
Sometimes, in the throes of a heated argument, Gates would unleash what Allen called
his "classic put-down: 'That's the stupidest f------ thing I’ve ever heard!'"
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Gates' penchant for cursing was documented by entrepreneur and blogger Joel Spolsky,
the founder of StackExchange and Fog Creek Software. In the early 1990s, Spolsky later
recalled on his blog, he began working as a program manager assigned to the Excel
product line.
During his first meeting with Gates, the room was filled with multiple layers of
management and a person from Spolsky's team who had been designated to keep a tally
of Gates' expletives.
"The lower the f--- count, the better," he recalled.
The counter tallied four, Spolsky wrote, "and everyone said, 'wow, that's the lowest I can
remember. Bill is getting mellow in his old age.'"
Gates was in his mid-30s at the time, Spolsky noted.
Later, Spolsky learned that the meeting was really just a chance for his boss to test his
mettle.
"Bill doesn't really want to review your spec, he just wants to make sure you've got it
under control," Spolsky wrote. "His standard M.O. is to ask harder and harder questions
until you admit that you don't know, and then he can yell at you for being unprepared.'"
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In a Reddit AMA in 2014, Gates was asked what's different about him now.
Plenty, Gates said.
Comment from discussion Hello Reddit – I’m Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation and Microsoft founder. Ask me anything..
MORE READING: With Xerox split, the future for Ursula Burns is unclear
A Wall Street thriller where women take center stage
Picturing the executive turnover at Twitter
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Peter Holley
Peter Holley is a technology reporter at The Washington Post. Before joining The Post in 2014,
he was a features writer at the Houston Chronicle and a crime reporter at the San Antonio
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2016/02/03/the-crazy-thing-bill-gates-used-
to-do-to-monitor-workplace-productivity/