[Book Review] Hit Refresh by Microsoft’s Satya Nadella

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Why Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Is Tearing Up the Windows Business

Microsoft has now rebuilt the company around the cloud instead of Windows, and employees approve

Ensure technology empowers people: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

(photo source: https://www.newasianpost.com/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-expounds-empathy-new-book/)

I picked up this book as I keen to learn how businesses transform itself… especially mammoth sized business such as Microsoft. I got what I wanted to know through this book as I see Microsoft, after lagging behind, to be leading once again.

Literally “hit refresh”.

Who is Satya Nadella? 

He is the third chief executive officer of Microsoft in the company’s forty-year history. He views the “C” in CEO as the curator of culture. He was from India, and later moved on to United States to pursue studies and career. He joined Microsoft in 1992 — exactly the year that I was born.

In his book, he explores how his childhood has shaped his life’s philosophy, set of beliefs and values. Later on, I found it highly fascinating how he redefined the culture of Microsoft and the business of Microsoft.

“Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first, could-first world. We will reinvest productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more. We are in the empowerment business. Helping people and their organizations achieve more is our sweet spot.”, in his own words.

He brought new meaning to what is shared strategy, mission and culture. Through the new way of doing things, his senior leadership started to understand each other better and momentum was apparent. The launch of Windows 10 and Surface Pro 3 happened. I also understood how Cloud and Big Data has solved many problems. For the next few years, Microsoft will be focusing on on mixed reality, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

The new business segments are “Experiences & Devices” + “Clouds and AI platforms”.

I also liked the chapter “Friends or Frenemies?” a lot.

It explored the possibility of strong rivals coming together to deliver fantastic products for its overlapping customers. For a long time, we know that Apple and Microsoft are competing very aggressively on operating systems. However, Satya did the most ridiculous thing…. he took out his competitor’s product, an iPhone, and he praised it. Later on, he added… “I like to call it the iPhone Pro because it’s got all the Microsoft software and applications on it.”.

He started to view competition as a big opportunity to collaborate instead. He changed how Microsoft started to work with their competitors – more sincerely and openly and  vice-versa.

Not just that, Microsoft started to work more closely with fiercely competitive companies such as Facebook, Google and Redhat to create win-win products/services.

Honestly, his approach to business is so refreshing that it wow me tremendously.

Beyond what Microsoft was doing, he explored a lot of difficult topics such as data privacy and the consequences / benefits of Artifical Intelligence. Although that is not my main interest for reading the book, I’ve enjoyed his fresh perspectives.

This is a book that all of us should read to find out how a company can “hit refresh”.  After this book, I am ever more convinced that culture matters a lot. I am also more convinced he has the necessary mindset to grow Microsoft. I feel that…. from his humble beginnings, his mother’s upbringing, and his special needs kid, he has grown and develop empathy for a lot of things. That is really necessary for a global MNC company.

Empowerment. Growth-mindset. Customer-centric. Partnerships.

“The Greatest Leader Is Not Necessarily The One Who Does The Greatest Things. He Is The One That Gets People To Do The Greatest Things.”