Imagine a magazine feature exploring the following question: “Can CEO Satya Nadella Save Microsoft?” Save it from what: too much success?
It wasn’t that long ago, however, that analysts were asking exactly such questions. Bethany McLean, writing in Vanity Fair just months after Nadella became the tech giant’s CEO, wrote this: “There’s a sense in the world outside Redmond, Washington, that Microsoft’s best days are behind it, that the sprawling colossus, which employs more than 100,000 people, doesn’t know what it is, or even what it wants to be.”
Since then, Microsoft has increased its workforce by about a third and its market capitalization has more than doubled, from about $350 billion in November 2014, when McLean’s story appeared, to more than $800 billion today. If Microsoft needed saving at the time, Nadella obviously did the job. And if Microsoft didn’t know what it was, or even what it wanted to be, Nadella seems to have figured it out.
He has succeeded spectacularly, in fact. But he did so quietly, calmly, thoughtfully, with little or no fireworks, swaggering, bombast, histrionics, and barely a mention in the gossip columns and Chatty Cathy blogosphere.
Nadella’s five-year run as Microsoft’s CEO has showcased a different kind of leadership, noteworthy as much for what he hasn’t done as for what he has. Avoiding center stage for the most part, Nadella has asserted a kind of leadership that there seems to be too little of these days: leading through others, helping them become the agents of Microsoft’s success.
The best way to explain, I think, is by circling back five years and examining the twin premises of McLean’s story: 1) that in November 2014, with its “best days … behind it,” Microsoft may have been heading for trouble, and 2) the related premise that the company had an identity crisis at the time and didn’t know what it was or “even what it wanted to be.”
There may be something to be said for premise #1. After all, as the Encyclopedia Britannica reminds us in its biographical sketch of Nadella, he didn’t exactly take over at the best of times. “One of Nadella’s first major tasks was overseeing the completion of Microsoft’s $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia Corp.’s mobile-device business, a transaction that had been announced in 2013 despite the reservations of various Microsoft executives,” the bio notes.
“Shortly after the deal closed in April 2014”—just two months after Nadella was elevated to CEO—“he announced the largest layoff in Microsoft’s history,” eliminating 18,000 positions, “the majority of which involved Nokia.” So it wasn’t, by all accounts, high times for Microsoft.
If there was an identity crisis at the time—and this one, I suppose, could be argued in either direction, depending on whether you think Nokia mobile devices were a good fit with, or in some meaningful manner would complement Microsoft’s other business units—no such confusion exists today. Nadella and his team know exactly what Microsoft is and what they want it to be: an innovative technology company that exists to help other businesses thrive.
Speaking at last summer’s “Microsoft Inspire” conference in Las Vegas, Nadella couldn’t have been clearer: “What binds us together,” he told conference goers—mostly members of the so-called Microsoft Partner Network — “is not our success, it’s the success that our customers achieve” with Microsoft’s products, expertise and assistance.
The company’s mission, he said—it’s “core guiding North Star”—is “to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.”
“…Everything that we do, every product that we build, every technology that we incubate … all has to be driven by a deep sense of … this mission.”
No ambiguity there. Their customers’ success is Microsoft’s success; it’s as simple as that. (While a bit wonkish in places if you're not techy, his presentation is well worth reading; a link can be found here).
What do we know about Nadella’s leadership style that might help explain his extraordinary success?
I asked several people who know him to describe him in a single word, as a psychologist might ask when administering a word-association test. The words I heard back were: contemplative; quiet; humble; empathetic; listener; engaging; deep thinker (okay, that’s two words); focused; strategic; empowering.
The game of cricket also was brought up, as was poetry. He likes them both.
Though most Americans don’t know this (and why should they?) there are three forms of cricket, ranging from a comparatively high-speed version lasting about three hours—about the length of a nine-inning baseball game—to a day-long contest and, for purists, traditional “test cricket” matches that stretch out over five days.
Nadella’s managing style, say those who know him, is akin to cricket’s long form: slow, deliberative, patient. He makes no snap decisions. He focuses on a handful of the most important issues facing the company and takes a deep dive on each, encouraging—indeed, insisting upon—serious input from others. Listening, probing, questioning. When he’s satisfied that he has enough information, he makes his decision—not a minute sooner.
Nadella is proof positive that one can be a powerful and effective leader without constantly being in the limelight, the center of attention.
There’s an apt saying: “It’s the thought that counts.” In Nadella’s case it’s the thoughtfulness—the thinking—that counts.
