Hisham Sarwar
Only three and a half years into his tenure as the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella has already written a book about his experiences. Satya says that he wanted to write from the middle where he battled to rescue Microsoft from a slow fade. After taking the control, he accomplished what seemed impossible by increasing Microsoft’s market cap by $250 billion.
When one considers Nadella’s central mission to recreate Microsoft’s culture as well as image in the eyes of the employees, business partners, etc. the timing of the book’s arrival of the book seem less peculiar. He has refocused the sight of his employees on where the company is leading and why rather than where it had been fallen behind. Through his book ‘Hit Refresh‘, Nadella is taking control of the Microsoft’s story and the results are mixed.
Following are the key points that you can learn from his book:
About leaders:
According to Nadella, you can look at the leaders as an operator of a machine which is built up by using various clogs. These clogs are of different sizes that coherently work together as one single machine. As a leader, it is crucial to select clogs that you can trust before operating that machine because without the clogs, you will not be able to operate anything.
Leadership Principles:
Satya Nadella states that in a leadership,
You need to bring clarity among the people you work.
As a leader, you are supposed to generate energy across the entire company and not just the team.
Also See: Satya Nadella’s ‘3’ Rules to become a successful leader
You must know how to drive innovation that people love and are inspired to work on. Also, you must find a balance between short-term and long-term success and become boundary-less and open minded for finding solutions.
Working with partners:
Without partners, you cannot reach your goals. In case of Microsoft, Nadella advises that partners act as a defence when getting a critical feedback and can help you fine-tune your application for a better customer experience.
Quantum computers on opening new ways of thinking:
Quantum computers were considered to take the place of the existing computers but Satya states something different. He says that Quantum computers will open new ways of thinking and will operate as a co-processor, receiving instructions, and cues from a stack of classical processors. Quantum computers will allow you to iterate on what you have already done rather than reworking it.
The different run-times:
According to Satya Nadella, already there were two different run times i.e. PC and then Web. Now the third run-time which you are moving towards is the AI. AI is now being used in startups and the general public is acknowledging its existence with the passage of time. Ai is indeed the next run but Satya thinks it still needs a lot of improvement before becoming the mainstream.
Business and leadership principles:
According to Satya, you need to compete vigorously and with passion while facing uncertainty and intimidation. But you must place your dreams ahead of your personal statistics and recognition. Your whole team can get destroyed if as a leader you don’t do that.
Make a priority:
For improving the customer experience, it is very important that you leverage data. Enable greater mobile productivity and collaboration by empowering your employees in the digital world of work.
