Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone

by Satya Nadella

Second, we are at our best when we actively seek diversity and inclusion.

Finally, we are one company, one Microsoft—not a confederation of fiefdoms.

Innovation and competition don’t respect our silos, our org boundaries, so we have to learn to transcend those barriers.

It is not about doing what’s comfortable within our own organization, it’s about getting outside that comfort zone, reaching out to do things...

I tell my colleagues they get to own a customer scenario, not the code.

Every year, employees—engineers, marketers, all professions—prepare in their home countries for the OneWeek growth hack like students preparing for a science fair, working in teams to hack problems they feel passionate about and then developing presentations designed to win votes from their colleagues.

Programmers and analysts suddenly transform into carnival barkers, selling their ideas to anyone who will listen. Reactions range from polite questions to vigorous debate and challenges. In the end, votes sent from smartphones are tallied, projects evaluated, winners celebrated. A few projects even receive funding as new business efforts.

When I learn about a shortcoming, it’s a thrilling

moment. The person who points it out has given me the gift of insight.

Each of my business decisions can be scrutinized in terms of whether or not it has helped Microsoft shift toward the growth mindset we aspire to.

Fixed-mindset decisions are ones that reinforce the tendency to continue doing what we’ve always done.

The story of how the Minecraft acquisition happened illustrates some of the key qualities of a growth mindset, including the readiness to empower and learn from individuals who possess insights and passion that the rest of the organization needs to learn from.

Fear of the unknown can send you in a million directions, and sometimes it just dead-ends with inertia. A leader

has to have an idea what to do—to innovate in the face of fear and inertia.

Sometimes it feels like a bird learning to fly. You flap around for a while, and then you run around. Learning to fly is not pretty but flying is.

we measure everything.

data is not perfect, but we can’t monitor what we can’t measure.

Even the most optimistic workers will become discouraged if they are not being developed.

senior leaders inside companies spend less than 10 percent of their time developing high potential leaders.

I wanted these people to stop seeing all the things that are hard and start seeing things that are great and helping others see them too.

three leadership principles—for

The first is to bring clarity to those you work with.

In order to bring clarity, you’ve got to synthes...

Leaders take internal and external noise and synthesize a message from it, recognizing the true s...

Second, leaders generate energy, not only on their own teams but across the company.

Leaders need to inspire optimism, creativity, shared commitment, and growth through times good and bad.

Third, and finally, they find a way to deliver success, to make things happen.

This means driving innovations that people love and are inspired to work on; finding balance between long-term success and short-term wins; and being boundary-less and globally minded in seeking solutions.

Leadership can be a lonely business. It can also be a noisy place. When a leader steps into the arena, especially in today’s loud echo chamber of social media, he or she can be tempted to make decisions that will result in instant gratification.

Reasoned judgment and inner conviction are what I expect from myself and from the leaders around me. Make the call, but don’t expect consensus.

To do that, sometimes we have to bury the hatchet with old rivals, pursue surprising new partnerships, and revive longstanding relationships.

In retail, point-of-sales devices are ubiquitous and a lucrative market for technology.

But there was no software standard to ensure that the cash register, the scanner, and other retail peripherals would all work together with the backend accounting and inventory systems.

We started with nothing, but built up a major enterprise business.

A company that once was seen as crushing the competition is now focused on achieving business growth by empowering everyone on the planet.

One lesson I learned from the antitrust case (there were many lessons) was to compete hard and then equally celebrate the opportunities we create for everyone. It’s not a zero-sum game.

In the end, we decided to forgo the requirement of exclusivity for Bing as Yahoo’s search partner. The issue was generating too much needless friction between the two parties, and we were confident that our technology and our partnership would prevail. We avoided costly litigation, and today Bing continues to handle the majority of Yahoo’s searches.

trust is built by being consistent over time.

It’s built by being clear that there are places where we are going to compete to be best in class, and there are places where we can work together to add value for each other’s customers.

Trust has many other components as well—respect, listening, transparency, staying focused, and being willing to hit reset when necessary....

Openness begins with respect—respect for the people at the table and the experiences they bring, respect for the other company and its mission.

I try hard not to bring needless history into the room, and I don’t let the limitations of the past dictate the contours of the future.

When complications threaten to stymie the effort to build a partnership, it helps to stay focused on long-term goals.

Rather than being distracted by the endless opportunities to collaborate and the numerous questions they raise, I like to start with one or two areas of focus.

Finally, don’t be afraid to take a pause. Even when both parties have nothing but the best intentions, things can sometimes go sideways and may even come to a standstill.

Sometimes it’s critical to look at an existing relationship with a fresh set of eyes. A strategy that failed in the past might work in the future.

Technology changes. The business environment change...

It’s a mistake to write off any relationship ...

how I manage time: Employees. Customers. Products. Partners.

All four are important, and without discipline even the best managers can overlook one or more.