Steve Ballmer is working to
create what he calls “One Microsoft.” He
wants to get rid of the “fiefdoms” that have produced internal friction and mediocre
results. The debates about the
reorganization have been, and correctly so, focused on the difficulty of
changing Microsoft’s culture.
Culture is about how people operate in the organization. Regardless
of how an organization is structured, if people have thrived by being
achievement driven – that is, trying to do “more, better, faster” than
everyone else – it will take a concerted and coordinated effort to demonstrate
that this modus operandi is no longer what’s going to get people ahead, or get
Microsoft ahead.
How well aligned are
Microsoft executives with Ballmer’s vision for the future?
Coordinated effort is tricky in any organization. In a culture like Microsoft’s that has encouraged
internal competition, you can bet that the leaders were caught up in, if not
driving, that behavior. In the fiefdom
landscape, where unit leaders have acted as mini CEOs in charge of an entire
business, each of those leaders had their own ideas about what would make them,
their group and the company successful. Are
those leaders really going to be collaborative now and “go along with” an idea
that is a composite of multiple perspectives? Or might they, instead, see collaboration as the
end of the ability to be a superstar with a career path to the top job?
Each individual on the senior team likely has their own
interpretation of what will create Ballmer’s “One Microsoft” and what the new
culture should look like. The challenge here is to understand where they are
“like-minded” and where they are “divergent” in their thinking. Changing the culture requires that the senior
team send out consistent messages, through their words and actions. Without an understanding of their degree of like-mindedness,
or lack thereof, they don’t have a chance of finding common ground and presenting
a unified front that gets everyone rowing in the same direction.
To define and develop a culture that supports the business
strategy, they must first agree on what makes the organization effect today,
and what will make it effective in the future. Once the leadership defines key organizational
effectiveness factors, they can then, with the right tools, determine the kind
of culture that will support that set of factors.
It isn’t simply about “improving” the culture or making the culture
more collaborative and communicative. Ballmer
and his team also need to consider how those desired culture characteristics
play together. If a more collaborative
culture is desired, how will that work in conjunction with a performance review
and reward system for top performers that Ballmer says ensures that “people
keep their competitive attitude at work.” That’s not to say that “collaborative” and “competitive”
cannot co-exist as characteristics of Microsoft’s unique culture profile, but
it will take deliberate actions to strike the right balance.
