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New Microsoft CEO Vows To Shake Up Corporate Culture
jfruh (300774) writes New Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that he and his leadership team are taking "important steps to visibly change our culture" and that "nothing is off the table" on that score. While much of his declaration consists of vague and positive-sounding phrases ("increase the fluidity of information and ideas by taking actions to flatten the organization and develop leaner business processes"), he outlined his main goals for the shift: reduce time it takes to get things done by having fewer people involved in each decision; quantify outcomes for products and use that data to predict future trends; and increasing investment for employee training and development.
Ha, a real manager!
But seriously, hopefully Microsoft will benefit from him and become a bit more popular amongst nerds.
-- Cheers!
as a former MicroSoftie (research, don't be a hater) I can confirm that Ballmer was first and foremost a sales guy. He brought in the revenue but destroyed the culture and the company in the process. He was a corporate raider, he just did it from the inside.
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I mean for that shit to hit the toilet!
reduce time it takes to get things done by having fewer people involved in each decision = layoffs
quantify outcomes for products and use that data to predict future trends = every ms product will have facebook-like privacy-infringing malware
increasing investment for employee training and development = get more h1b visas to replace us workers with foreign code monkeys
So, does 'crease' actually exist in this sense?
Sounds good. To Malaysia and Beyond!
Does everybody have their bingo cards ready?
What does that even mean? How can you 'crease the fluidity' of anything? Sound suspiciously like typical management-speak, and I don't think that's what MS needs at all.
To think one man, with some initiative can change the culture of a company the size of Microsoft, with entrenched interests, history of turf warfare and empire building is blowing smoke. That company went through spectacular expansion and growth in the 1990s. All those very capable people, the ones who have the vision and ability and the guts to skate too close to or even past the edges of legal behavior have all cashed out, burnt out or pushed out. As the able ones leave, the fraction of PHBs who are clueless when there is not a de-facto monopoly increases. They are playing the same game that used to be effective when there was a WinTel monopoly on desktops, and desktops had the monopoly on computing.
A truly visionary CEO will realize this, break the company into pieces that will once again compete or perish and resign. But Satya Nadella is no Michail Gorbachev.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Increasing the fluidity of information and ideas by taking actions to flatten the organisation and develop leaner business processes is not vague, and at least if you're someone in Microsoft whose career relies on one of those well-documented organisational unit fiefdoms, it's not positive.
There will be many at MS who see that phrase as anything but vague; it's aimed at them.
Am I the only one thinking this?
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Santa Claus was seen over the North Pole on his annual 4th of July flght to deliver civil rights to children all over the world.
His flight was, unfortunately, grounded by the middle management at the reindeer stable, who had used up all the funding for planning lunches among the elf leadership and had nothing left to actually feed the reindeer with, and his failure to obtain valid visas from countries that did not exist when his flight first launched, as happens every year. But the Powerpoint presentations were *fabulous*, and all the VP's gave themselves big stock bonuses.
Seriously, Microsoft lost its way when the dancing monkey took over ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc ). And middle management is never going to let it find its way again: Too many settled paperwork pushers, too many turf wars, too big of an established monopoly customer base to really move on newer technologies. Microsoft Office has overwhelmed itself with useless interface frippery instead of actually publishing an API or handling large documents, The Windows 9 "le't pretend we're a Mac but get everything wrong" stupidity has turned Windows 8 in to the next Windows XP, which no one will be able to move off of, the compiler's a non-POSIX-compliant joke that no one can trust.
Let's face it, they've screwed themselves into a corner and would need a plague of middle management eating necrotic viruses to clear the bureaucracy for new management to change anything.
"crease the fluidity of information and ideas by taking actions to flatten the organization and develop leaner business processes"
It may be the management culture he was raised in, and I had higher hopes for the Indian-born CEO (diversity, new perspective), but he was also reportedly emailing employees the company would reinvent productivity.
So, likely we'll get SSDD... and less entertainment value than Ballmer provided.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I didn't know much about Satya Nadella, so I did some reasearch.
This is what Wikipedia tells me about him (I'm assuming it's valid; there are citations after all!):
Early life
Satya Nadella[9][10][11] was born in Hyderabad, in a Telugu family from Anantapur district[12][13] in Andhra Pradesh, India. His father was a civil servant in the Indian Administrative Service,[12][13] Nadella attended the Hyderabad Public School in Begumpet[14] before attaining a bachelor of engineering in Electronics and Telecommunications from the Manipal Institute of Technology in 1987 (then affiliated to Mangalore University), Manipal, Karnataka.[15][16][17][18][19]
Nadella subsequently traveled to the US on a student visa to study for an MS degree in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee,[20] receiving his degree in 1990.[21] Later he received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.[22][23]
Nadella said he "always wanted to build things."[24] He knew that computer science was what he wanted to pursue.[25] But that emphasis was not available at Manipal University. "And so it [electronic engineering] was a great way for me to go discover what turned out to become a passion," he says.[26]
Career
Nadella worked with Sun Microsystems, as a member of its technology staff, prior to joining Microsoft in 1992.[2][3]
Microsoft
At Microsoft Nadella has led major projects including the company's move to cloud computing and the development of one of the largest cloud infrastructures in the world.[27]
Nadella worked as the senior vice-president of research and development (R&D) for the Online Services Division and vice-president of the Microsoft Business Division. Later, he was made the president of Microsoft's $19 billion Server and Tools Business and led a transformation of the company's business and technology culture from client services to cloud infrastructure and services. He has been credited for helping bring Microsoft's database, Windows Server and developer tools to its Azure cloud.[28] The revenue from Cloud Services grew to $20.3 billion in June 2013 from $16.6 billion when he took over in 2011.[29]
Nadella's 2013 base salary is nearly $700,000, for a total compensation, with stock bonuses, of $7.6 million.[30]
Previous positions held by Nadella include:[31]
President of the Server & Tools Division (9 February 2011 – February 2014)
Senior Vice-President of Research and Development for the Online Services Division (March 2007 – February 2011)[32]
Vice-President of the Business Division
Corporate Vice-President of Business Solutions and Search & Advertising Platform Group
Executive Vice-President of Cloud and Enterprise group[15]
On 4 February 2014, Nadella was announced as the new CEO of Microsoft,[7][8] the third chief executive in the company's history.[33][34][35][36]
I've put the important points in bold.
He is no average man! He is a GOD among us mere mortals. All of the best technology experts come from Hyderabad. Hyderabad Public School in Begumpet is one of the most prestigious institutions to attend. And the Manipal Institute of Technology is world renowned for the superb learning experience it imparts on its students. To be honest, I don't even care about his other credentials or work experience. His origins alone show that he is more than me, his is more than you, and he is more than everybody else. He is more.
LAYOFFS
automation eliminates my job but never those jobs?
I've seen numerous talks/podcasts with MS employees and it seemed pretty flat. Many say things like my bosses boss (head of enterprise software) says we should XYZ for our customers. Maybe by the time you get invited to podcasts you are already pretty senior but a lot of them sounded like they were just a member of a team, ASP or C# say. If that is any indication of the hierachy though it probably is only 5-6 levels to the CEO which isn't bad when you have 130k employees basically breaking the company up with each junior manager managing 20 people, their manager managing 20 managers etc all the way up would do that.
"reduce time it takes to get things done by having fewer people involved in each decision"
Get that resume ready folks...
In spite of the criticism of Microsoft under Steve Balmer, Microsoft, produced the fine Windows 7 Desktop Environment, which is superior to any Desktop Environment that the FOSS has produced, for the average American. They have better APIs, (no X11, or ALSA), better looking icons, and less bugs.
MBA's have the amazing ability to fit a lot of words into very little meaning.
Corporate culture has a way of pushing back.
Look at home lame Yahoo still is technically, even with former Google engineer Marissa Mayer as their CEO.
OTOH, engineers don't specialize in managing people and that is what is needed in changing a corporate culture. That is tough to do even with people who are talented with people, as well as people who aren't pregnant when taking over a company.
Here come the cubicles, you know, to increase "the fluidity of information."
...and, he's very big on out-sourcing and right-sizing.
Wants to change culture A+
Talks in manager Mumbo Jumbo F
Indians. Hmmm... So does this mean Microsoft is giving up IIS and switching to Apache?
Any idea on how to crate an alternative to Microsoft's Xbox business unit with "principles and freedom"? Historically, there haven't been a lot of major studio video games released as free software from day one.
Changing MS's corporate culture will be comparable to driving a fully loaded mega oil tanker through the same S curves as Formula 1 cars traverse. In another word, impossible. By the time any minimal action is started in this area, Nadella will likely be retired or fired.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
He could start by changing the company's grading system from an "individual selection" to a "group selection" system since the individual selection fosters competition and group selection fosters cooperation.
We're going to be more transparent. We're going to make healthcare affordable for everyone. We're going to fix immigration. Oh, and we lost those emails because our hard drive crashed.
My grandfather was lucid right up until the end, until he convulsed and cried out some gibberish, which I thought was: "Crease the fluidity of information and ideas by taking actions to flatten the organization and develop leaner business processes!", but that sounds too outlandish to be real. Then he passed away.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I'm surprised that making better products (from the perspective of their customers) isn't mentioned.
Microsoft products have tended to get worse over time, and rely on more lock-in without improving for the customer.
Any company with a business plan like this is going to suffer.
That sentences sound like a tag line from the Pointy Haired Boss from a Dilbelrt cartoon jejejejejeje, Scott Adams is a genius!!!
I don't understand how people with such a poor command of meaningful language are able to effectively manage and lead multi-billion dollar corporations.
I suppose it is possible that they are capable, secretly, of conveying meaning by the use of words, but then why would they hide this ability from investors? Surely a CEO who doesn't sound like a retard inspires more confidence than one who does?
heh...
so above there are a few people arguing over whether parent is a 'plant' comment...
either way...it made me laugh
Thank you Dave Raggett
i was going to post something similar (i usually use blockquote) but you pretty much hit it
i lol'ed when i saw "quantify outcomes"...
seriously..."quantify outcomes"...might as well say "keep toilet paper stocked"...the whole fskign world runs on quantified outcomes...i'm dismayed not because a M$ CEO is throwing out doublespeak BS...no, that is expected of course...it's what he chose to say that indicates his vision for M$ will be more of the same only more efficient internally
Thank you Dave Raggett
Two lions who, escaping from the zoo, split up to increase their chances but agree to meet after 2 months. When they finally meet, one is skinny and the other overweight. The thin one says: âoeHow did you manage? I ate a human just once and they turned out a small army to chase me â" guns, nets, it was terrible. Since then I've been reduced to eating mice, insects, even grass.â The fat one replies: âoeWell, I hid outside the door at One Microsoft Way and ate a manager a day. And nobody even noticed!â
--
BMO
increase fluidity of information
Apparently the information at MS is not very fluid, so this is a serious attempt at making that information much more fluider
and ideas
This one suspiciously coincides with the legalization of pot in WA state
flatten the organization
I think this is really a statement about facilities, there is a lot of wasted vertical space so most likely they will be installing something like those Japanese "drawer" hotels (where the person lays in what looks like a human sized drawer). They should be able to put a screen and keyboard in there so people can work laying down. I'm guessing they can get 3x more people in each building with this system.
Nothing is off the table? Does the table include lying, doublespeak, file format lock in, using proxies to sue Linux users, bribing and strongarming standardization committee members, the whole embrace, extend, and exterminate strategy that they tried with Java and IE, Windows Genuine Advantage, staying in bed with the copyright extremists of the entertainment industry, continued support of organizations like the Business Software Alliance? Is any of that off the table?
If MS's new CEO isn't acknowledging that they went too far with that stuff, and that the company will go in a new direction, stop being anti-social, stop being evil, then the new CEO represents no real change, just some minor adjustments.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Nadella used to run Bing. Did anything change there while he was in charge?
Who's still on the board?
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
You do realize USB sucks right? It is cheap though, meeting Intel's primary goal.
needs to realize the requirements for entertainment devices and for corporate computing devices are VERY different.
I, for one, do not want a "consistent" experience. I want an appropriate experience.
Most of it is empty business-speak; I especially like "Today I want to synthesize the strategic direction" for pure meaningless noise. However, there is one meaningful part: "We'll use the month of July to have a dialogue about this bold ambition and our core focus. [...]Over the course of July, the Senior Leadership Team and I will share more on the engineering and organization changes we believe are needed."
Meaning? They'll take July to make up the lists, then layoffs in early August.
Oh, you mean "INcrease the fluidity", but couldn't be bothered to read your own summary. Who writes this shit?
. . . including offshoring all of Micro$oft's jobs to my mother country, India!
Although Linux is really hurting the inroads that MS made into the server market, it will never touch the desktop until it's just as easy to use.
For an elderly couple today, I swapped out a Linksys WRT54G for a Netgear capable of 802.11ac. This is how each computer reacted:
-The Nook (Running Linux) found the new network, asked for a password, grabbed an IP address, and was on the network in seconds.
-The Android Tablet (Running Linux) found the new network, asked for a password, grabbed an IP address, and was on the network in seconds.
-The Samsung Phone (Running Linux) found the new network, asked for a password, grabbed an IP address, and was on the network in seconds.
-The Samsung TV (Running Linux) found the new network, asked for a password, grabbed an IP address, and was on the network in seconds.
-The LG TV (Running Linux) found the new network, asked for a password, grabbed an IP address, and was on the network in seconds.
-The HP Printer (Running ?) found the new network, asked for a password, grabbed an IP address, and was on the network in seconds.
-The Toshiba Laptop (Running Windows 8) saw the network, never asked for a password, had to be manually configured to access the network, grabbed an IP address, and was on the network in minutes.
-The other Toshiba Laptop (Running Windows 7) saw the network, never asked for a password, had to be manually configured to access the network, grabbed an IP address, and was on the network in minutes.
Re-installing the printer on Windows was also a Windows Update adventure. I almost forgot, both Windows machines had malware. Talk about unusable.
I'd much rather hear him say:
"I use Windows 8.1 on a desktop and it sucks. Windows 9 is going to be good on desktops and we are not going to release it until it is.
AND, we are going to play fair with users and make sure that every security patch we develop for Windows Embedded Industry is also SQAed on and made available to all Windows XP users. It may not make us the most money but it's the right thing to do."
Corporate culture? I am an end-user, I don't care what Microsoft's corporate culture is, I care about its products.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Some things he may have missed: ... These and other management B.S. buzzword terms brought to you by the Management B.S. buzzword generator.
* progressively syndicate extensible expertise
* progressively formulate error-free systems
* distinctively supply optimal potentialities
* effectively maximise visionary leadership skills
* enthusiastically aggregate synergistic web-readiness
* objectively procrastinate business web-readiness
* seamlessly matrix future-proof services
* seamlessly leverage other's parallel sources
* distinctively simplify strategic systems.
And thanks again...
I've worked for big tech companies exactly like Microsoft for 20 years (it's a small list). By the time they get to this size they go through this inevitable phase, which is entrenched, slow thinking and work. A new CEO vows to speed things up, and ... so far there isn't one example of a company that pulled this off. The problem is that it gets bloated with too many people used to working a certain way, and they're all getting older. The ones who want to be innovative either leave or do it outside of work, as it becomes impossible to do so in the company.
I long ago decided that when I retired (and I just did) that my next computer would be an Apple. I've spent my whole career dealing with Unix then Linux systems in the back room and Microsoft trash on Corporate desktops. I already have an iPad and an iPhone and my kids and wife have long since turned their backs to Microsoft products. I'm next.
My 8 core Xenon, 16 GB ram system running Windows 7 will be my last system running Microsoft products. I've even managed to convince my last employer to begin replacing his Window XP and Window 7 systems with Linux desktops. That, however, will not be my problem.
This has nothing to do with shaking up corporate culture, agreed. But I mean, the back slash as a path separator was just wrong from the beginning IMO. Could MS regain developer community support by realigning its foundation from DOS to Unix? Developer support == apps == users == happy, in simplest terms. I have no stake in the matter, I'm an Apple person (talk about lock-in). I just want to see such an instrumental contributor to the industry get itself back on track.
While it is good to change something if need be, it can be very detrimental to be overexcited, ready to change everything to how you see fit, and end up causing a lot more problems that solving. On the lower levels you'll especially see this with power hungry over ambitious managers who take advantage of their role to completely change how things are done, regardless of whether the old way actually worked. The best way to "shake things up" is to slowly transition and test your new ideas so you don't create a mess in the process.