I really enjoyed "Microsoft is the Very Antithesis of Strategy" that was linked to by this Monday Note:<p><a href="http://techpinions.com/microsoft-is-the-very-antithesis-of-strategy/32303" rel="nofollow">http://techpinions.com/microsoft-is-the-very-antithesis-of-s...</a>
This is beautiful: "If I’m presented with statements I cannot realistically disagree with – <i>We Will Behave With Utmost Integrity</i> – I feel there’s something wrong. If it’s all pro and no con, it’s a con."<p>That's advice for life.
Personally I would have trouble respecting and following the lead of a person who spoke with this level of apparently deliberate obfuscation and non-inform speak.<p>To me, it, appears to be an attempt to deceive rather than enlighten, and it certainly wouldn't give me a good attitude nor make me feel better about the company.<p>But I don't work for those kind of companies, and maybe the people who do have a high tolerance for this kind of behavior by now. I guess it beats a guy walking around the halls swinging a baseball bat and dashing about the stage like a wild man during company pep rallies.
Essentially, this article is complaining that Nadella is playing politics. When you're dependent on mass complicity, boasting airy platitudes and leaving the plan publicly undefined (that is, saying a bunch of stuff that's impossible to disagree with) is the only way to succeed. You don't become CEO of Microsoft by being a political ignoramus. Nadella knew this would go public and is using it to project the image the company wishes to attain for itself. It doesn't matter if it's real or not, the mere act of repetition does much to reinforce the belief in the audience's mind.<p>I've learned that the most successful C-levels will almost never commit anything substantive to writing. Send them an email looking for direction and it's always, "Let's talk about that tomorrow". There are a lot of strong political reasons for that.
Whoever wrote this article is a bit delusional. Every CEO letter in Silicon Valley is full of ridiculous cliches and platitudes. Why did the author pick this particular CEO for censure? I can think of only two reasons:
1) Nadella is foreign looking
2) Microsoft is everyone's favorite punching bag.<p>Have you read some of the communication coming out of Facebook and Salesforce? Jesus, just walk around Facebook's campus and you'll see ridiculous motivational posters that say things like, "DEMAND EXCELLENCE!"
Who doesn't?<p>* * *<p>You can only boldly tell what you're going to do if you know what you're going to do.<p>When in Enterprise, write as the middle managers do.
Great article. Not just for its crisp analysis of what Nadella did wrong, but even more so for how he could have expressed his thoughts clearly and gotten it right.