Transformation in Progress: Leadership Lessons from Satya Nadella

I recently read Satya Nadella’s new book Hit Refresh, and I also heard him speak at Microsoft Ignite and Envision last month. As a technology leader, and as a Microsoft fan, there’s a lot to like about Satya’s approach to leadership, so I thought I’d write a blog article summarizing my learnings.

I am biased

I’ve been a long-time fan of Microsoft. Frankly, I owe my career to the company. Starting nearly 20 years ago, I built my skills on Windows NT, and rode the wave as enterprises rapidly adopted Microsoft technologies and moved away from Novell, IBM, Sun, and HP.

Even before Satya Nadella took the helm, I was a Microsoft fan. Those were some dark days. Windows 8 was a flop, Windows phones and tablets were a joke, and Amazon was already killing it in the cloud. “Microsoft is dead” was a common and popular viewpoint. In 2013, at BriForum Chicago, I publicly took the unpopular position that Microsoft was going to figure it out. So, you should all know, I liked Microsoft before it was cool.

An interesting time to write

The timing of the book grabbed my attention. Usually, you see leaders write their memoirs after they’ve achieved their success and then they recount the harrowing tales that marked the journey. Nadella addressed this head-on and instead wanted to write about organizational transformation from his current viewpoint amidst the fog of war.

I find that fascinating and relatable. After all, here I am writing a weekly blog about technology leadership, and I’m not particularly accomplished yet. I’m not the CIO. I’m an engineer-turned-leader that’s made in into middle-management. I write this blog to mark and record the journey and to encourage those along the same path.

“Culture eats strategy for lunch” — Peter Drucker

Nadella sees his role as CEO as the curator of the organization’s culture. He detailed in many ways the specific shifts in culture that needed to take place across every level of the organization. Nadella believes in empathy, values, and trust. He is a learner, not a know-it-all, and he is actively cultivating a growth mindset across the organization.

I really like this approach. As leaders, we are quick to blame lots of things for our lack of success such as: the market, the government, the competition, our customer, our lack of skills or tools, our strategy, etc. I share Nadella’s belief that culture is at the root. It’s also one of the hardest things to shape, but it’s completely within the organization’s control. That’s why I consistently write about culture change on this blog.

Do good

Almost all corporations make money and give some of it away to charity. While that’s great, it is not enough. What’s better is if your money-making mission also achieves some good and noble outcome.

Nadella digs deep and connects the dots for his entire organization to the purpose and mission of Microsoft: “Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” When you think about that mission, it has some significant power in it. Mission should beacon the team to get out of bed in the morning and remember why they put their hearts into their work.

Embedded in this mission is renewed focus on accessibility and equality. It’s really cool to see how empathy has driven Microsoft to prioritize research and innovation that enables more people on the planet to productively participate in the economy through technology. Microsoft is making disabilities and socioeconomic conditions a smaller barrier for entry. That’s really good news. That’s more people doing the creative work to improve their families and communities, and fewer victims of circumstance.

Be a good partner

Microsoft has a longstanding reputation for being a ruthless partner. Nadella knew that he couldn’t only transform the organization within, he also needed to transform its position in the technology community. Since Nadella took the helm, there have been plenty of “hell froze over” moments, and finally the shock is starting to wear off. Do you remember you first started seeing Microsoft employees openly carrying iPhones or when Microsoft announced Linux on Azure?

Competition is good and healthy until it isn’t. Microsoft was such a fierce competitor that it soured the entire technology community and mired it in litigation and bitterness. Business relationships are complex, but Microsoft has found a new way to compete and partner simultaneously with companies and become a better member of the overall technology community.

It comes down to a mentality and a priority. You have to shift from zero sum to abundance. You have to prioritize what’s good for the customer.

Imagine the future

So far, these concepts have been widely applicable to just about every kind of leader. Microsoft is a tech company and Satya Nadella is a technologist. The final ingredient is a bold commitment to a border-line science-fiction future. Nadella does this nicely. While other leaders are still talking about mobile and cloud, he is talking about artificial intelligence, mixed reality, and quantum computing. These aren’t just R&D side projects, but Nadella is betting the future of Microsoft on these technology advancements. This is pretty encouraging.

Even in technology, we often get too nearsighted. We think our strategy is launching the next version of product X with a few extra bells and whistles. We need to stay focused on the fantastic future reality that our teams are going to create. This is incredibly energizing for a team and can only come from a technologist’s vision.

I’m reminded of Peter Thiel’s famous quote: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” In general, I’m fairly disappointed with the pace of technology evolution. We can do better than just make a new shiny mobile app. As technologists, we can and should change the world. I think we let ourselves off the hook too easily. Reading Nadella’s vision of the future, I get the feeling that I was born too early. I don’t often get that feeling. The future is going to be cool.

Those are my leadership lessons from Satya Nadella. If you are a fan like me, I suggest you pick up the book and give it a read. I barely scratched the surface in this article. As a technology leader myself on a significantly smaller scale, I take encouragement from this. I too, see myself as a technologist and a people leader. I too, see myself as in-the-midst of an organizational transformation. There are probably a lot of us out there. Like my blog? Please share it with your colleagues. Like what Microsoft has been up to? Please comment below.

Read this article on my blog site: http://zachonleadership.com/transformation-progress-leadership-lessons-satya-nadella/