Since I joined Microsoft in 1992, Satya Nadella not only impressed those he worked for, landing him promotion after promotion until he took the helm 10 years ago, but he also earned the admiration of his peers by doing.
Today, his fellow CEOs admire him more than anyone else Fortune 500 boss, including Doug McMillon of Walmartwho dominated the recently released 70th edition of the Fortune 500 list.
It’s not difficult to understand why.
Nadella made Microsoft 10 times more valuable during his decade as CEO
Microsoft has appeared in the Fortune 500 every year since the list was expanded in 1995, and that’s no small feat.
Many others historical companies on the list have lost relevance and seen their position slowly decline in the rankings.
However, Microsft has experienced the opposite: the tech giant has continued to climb the rankings, from 34th to 13th place, since Nadella began steering his ship.
Despite continued disruption in the technology industry, Microsoft’s market capitalization has grown from well under $400 billion when Steve Ballmer resigned, to more than $3.16 trillion today. Meanwhile, the company’s turnover has almost tripled in the last 10 years.
For what? Because Nadella knows that businesses that don’t adapt die.
Instead of resting on its laurels, Nadella pushed Microsoft to innovate: bold acquisitions, including LinkedIn and GitHub, just like its move to the cloud. Today, Microsoft is preparing for the future by investing heavily in AI.
As the CEO said Fortune in our latest cover story: “When the paradigm shifts, do you have anything to contribute? Because God has no right to exist if you don’t have anything relevant. »
It’s all about one’s growth mindset
When Nadella took the reins of Microsoft, his first order of business was changing (or rather calming) the company culture.
It’s a far cry from Silicon Valley’s unofficial motto of “move fast and break things,” but encouraging employees to take a break (if only mentally) has clearly had a positive impact on Microsoft.
The ruler was born in India to a Sanskrit scholar mother, who taught him to be attentive. Every morning he remembers what he is grateful for and he credits that with helping him stay in his a-game.
Following this mindset, the cool, calm and collected CEO put his management team on the Zen train by asking them to read Non-violent communication by Marshall Rosenberg, a book about leading using compassion and understanding rather than competition and judgment.
According to one account From the book From incremental to exponential, Nadella made it clear that outdated and aggressive behavior imposed from above was no longer welcome.
Instead, he worked to create a comfortable environment in which even the lowest-ranking employee felt safe to share concerns or ideas. At the same time, employees who previously worked with a “know-it-all” worldview were asked to become “learn-it-alls.”
“If you take two kids to school, one of them has more innate abilities but knows everything. The other person has less innate ability but knows how to learn everything. He who knows everything does better than he who knows everything,” Nadella said in 2019 on the podcast. Hello Monday » explaining his “growth mindset” philosophy. “It’s about each of us confronting our fixed state of mind.”
Because of this culture shift, the change can be seen in the products themselves.
Now that developers are being asked for their opinions on what they would like to see from the company, Microsoft’s cloud is growing at a considerable pace. Analysts estimate Azure, which was about half the size of Amazon Five years ago, web services are now three-quarters of its size.
“Azure is indebted to (developers); they are the customer and they will continue to use it if they find it useful and enjoyable,” Nadella said. Fortune.
