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Say What? Wading Through the Nonsense In Microsoft's Re-Org Memo
curtwoodward writes "Steve Ballmer's attempt to reorganize Microsoft into a more focused company will define his legacy as CEO. So you'd think the wordsmiths in Redmond would take a little time ensuring their message was crystal-clear, right? Not exactly. Ballmer's big, gung-ho memo to Microsofties, posted on the company's website, is chock full of nonsense and corporate executive doublespeak — or, as Ballmer might say, `high-value experiences' that will `involve repartitioning the work' and `drive partners across our integrated strategy and its execution.' Huh?" Honest language in corporate communications is a rare quality. I suspect there's a special language-butchering training course that most C-level executives enthusiastically complete.
Have you ever watched an interview with Ballmer and after thought to yourself "Did he actually answer any questions?" /Ballmer smiles.
Ballmer: "We pass the TCP/IP stack into a business flow analysis helping our customers make better decisions!"
Interviewer: "Wow, you guys are busy. Way over my head."
Ballmer: "Just look for it this fall on stores. You'll be pleased we fixed the UDP experience problems with VB."
Where is the actual story?
If you can actually parse the bull, it does have some actual meaning underneath it, and what it says isn't necessarily a good thing.
"We will pull together disparate engineering efforts today into a coherent set of our high-value activities. This will enable us to deliver the most capability—and be most efficient in development and operations—with the greatest coherence to all our key customers.”
This says that smart people won't be able to work on small, high functioning teams like they need to. Instead, itsounds like they're going to break up teams and pool their people. This will have the effect of making everyone equally mediocre, which is not what they need.
“Some of these changes will involve putting things together and others will involve repartitioning the work, but in all instances we will be more coherent for our users and developers.”
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." What value does he deliver if everything is the same? This squashes out room for innovation.
This memo is not only gobbledygook, it's hiding some really bad practices.
John
We will be replacing all of the employees with small shell scripts. The ones we can't, we will be outsourcing your
jobs to Elbonia, until there are no employees remaining that are not upper management.
Then we will declare bankruptcy, pocket all the profits until we re-emerge as a shell company sellining
rights to our name.
Oh and XboxOne.
I'm not sure Balmer realizes he is no longer in B-school. He seems to like to surround himself with like-minded B-school buddies, and runs Microsoft like it's the fraternity Mu Sigma Alpha. This kind of bizarro, "in"-group lingo doesn't actually fly when you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company in what appears to be a consolidation/contraction phase and a profit-taking decline. This buddy mentality is the last thing "MS House" needs.
Plainspoken English matters in business when there is a crisis at hand. This kind of platitude laden memo belongs in a company that is not hungry and is cruising along with a high-quality, high-growth business strategy. Then you can talk biz-orgs theory all you like, however you may please.
My 2 cents. That penny is depreciated to the inflation standard of the year 2500, I would guess, but I find this kind of gamesmanship worrying.
I want MS to adapt and succeed. It has every reason to. It doesn't seem to be doing so. It seems to be resting on its laurels, and has been for a decade.
Well what is he gonna say? "Hi, I want Wall street to kiss my behind and love me like they do Apple so I'm gonna burn the company to the ground by being MORE expensive, MORE cellphone like (since iPhone is kicking our behinds) and with more walled gardens and even higher apps! What could possibly go wrong, it works for Apple right?"
I wonder if in 5 years we'll take of "The Ballmer Effect" where a CEO has such a disconnect from reality that he'll torch the company trying to make it something it isn't. if Ballmer reads this let me make this perfectly clear, okay? Hey Steve...if I wanted a tablet I'D BUY A FRICKING TABLET so stop trying to jam a tablet UI onto my PC, okay buddy? And we sure as hell ain't paying apple money for Windows Steve, that plan is as retarded as Walmart raising prices 5000% and thinking that means they can compete with Macy's, its a different demographic dude and you can't slap a coat of paint on a Pinto and sell it for Porsche money, its just not gonna work, its a giant bloated failwhale on the beach of life.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Dear business community:
Please pay no attention to the news that we are sending pretty much everything you type directly to the NSA in exchange for buckets of cash and favors. Especially you, China! Losing our entire strategy for southeast Asia would probably hurt the stock price. Hah! If those idiots knew!
Also, for those of you who like Windows 8 except for the forced UI change, you're shit out of luck. It's a thing I've said is good, therefore it is good, and the millions of customers desperately fleeing the platform have no effect on how I view that decision. Because I'm a really smart business guy. Look, I'm in a suit and tie!
All the best,
Steve Ballmer