Building from last weeks post about the shape of change where I set out that there are two key ingredients needed to truly realise the business benefits that technology promises and that is: Culture + Technology. You can’t do one without the other. You can have the best technology on the planet but without a customer centric culture, a desire to learn or a willingness to adapt to new ways of doing things, it becomes almost impossible (or very expensive!) to be successful.
We’ve tried to codify this at Microsoft. Our technology is well documented across our six solution areas, our technology comes together seamlessly and enables us to do incredible things for our customers. New people joining the company are quickly blown away by the empowerment that this technology brings.
Less discussed perhaps is how we think about culture and so I put this slide together visualise this concept and what we do:
The way we think about our culture (at a high level) can be thought of as follows:
- Our Mission: To empower every person and every organisation to achieve more
- Leadership Principles: Create clarity, Generate Energy, Deliver Success
- Manage Expectations: Model, Coach, Care
- Cultural attributes: Customer obsessed, Diverse & Inclusive, One Microsoft
- Company Values: Respect, Integrity, Accountability
- Growth Mindset: Ability can be developed Vs Ability is static
At Microsoft we go much deeper on each, through training, workshops and the way we think about people & performance. The key is Have you defined what your culture is? and Can people clearly and consistently articulate it?
You can download the above slide here
You can find out more on our culture and employee experience here.
Mark Margolis 