Innovation was being replaced by bureaucracy. Teamwork was being replaced by internal politics. We were falling behind.
A leader must see the external opportunities and the internal capability and culture – and all of the connections among them – and respond to them before they become obvious parts of the conventional wisdom.
Instead of thinking of you working for Microsoft, think of how Microsoft can work for you.
Listening was the most important thing I accomplished each day because it would build the foundation of my leadership for years to come.
Un personaje brillante que no pone primero al equipo puede destruirlo por completo.
The questions required a lot of soul-searching. What is my vision? What is the strategy to achieve it? What does success look like and where to get started? Now, a few months later, I reflected on what I had written and the process that led to this day.
The bigger a company, the more responsibility its leader has to think about the world, its citizens and their long term opportunities.
After all, how we experience the world is through communications and collaboration. If we are interested in machines that work with us, then we can’t ignore the humanistic approach.
Leadership means making choices and then rallying the team around those choices. One thing I had learned from my dad’s experience as a senior Indian government official was that few tasks are more difficult than building a lasting institution. The choice of leading through consensus versus fiat is a false one. Any institution-building comes from having a clear vision and culture that works to motivate progress both top-down and bottom-up.
The number one thing that you have to do as a leader: to bolster the confidence of the people you lead.
Trust is more than a handshake. It’s the agreement, the bond, between users of digital services and the suppliers of those services that enables us to enjoy, be productive, learn, explore, express, create, be informed.
Alan Kay quips, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Leadership means making choices and then rallying the team around those choices.
The key to the culture change was individual empowerment.
Finally, trust is the foundation upon which everything we do is built. That’s why we’ve invested heavily in security and compliance that set the standard for enterprises.
If we can connect what we stand for as individuals with what this company is capable of, there is very little we can’t accomplish.
I do have a bias for which I am unapologetic... for driving investment toward technological advancements... that help people create, connect, and become more productive rather than software that is simply entertaining – memes for conspicuous consumption. Spillover effects on the economy are pretty limited for technologies that don’t foster a more equitable ratio of consumption to creation.
If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet,” the Danish Nobel physicist Niels Bohr once said.
Consistency is better than perfection!
First, we needed to obsess about our customers. At the core of our business must be the curiosity and desire to meet a customer’s unarticulated and unmet needs with great technology.
Constraints are real and will always be with us, but leaders are the champions of overcoming constraints.