Hit Refresh
The autobiography is written by “Satya Nadella” – the then CEO, now Chairman, of the Microsoft Corp.
Through the book, the author tries to introduce the excerpts from his early childhood and overall upbringing and parenting that would shape his thought process for the rest of his life. He reflects upon his ambitions, ideas and thought processes as he took up the different professional and personal roles, and phases of life. It is the narration of the journey from a cricket enthusiast turned technology lover who would take learnings from every aspect and phase of his life – be it good or bad, happy or sad!
NADELLA: THE SON, THE HUSBAND, THE CRICKETER!
Early Childhood
The early childhood of Nadella is shaped by his mother’s (Sanskrit Professor) ideas of living a balanced life and his father’s (an IAS officer) zeal for intellectual excellence and Marxist inclination. His upbringing is influenced greatly by the lessons of moderation and mindfulness from his mother, values of discipline and professional integrity from his father, exposure to multiple places and regions, crickets and academics.
Traversing the not so conventional career ladder
A general pressure that is mounted on the children of those in the elite administrative services (like the Indian Administrative Services) is to repeat the ‘legacy’ and be in such services themselves. However, Satya admits that his ambitions and career pulls remained unaffected by this pressure. His first love has always been CRICKET.
He cherishes his school life at Hyderabad Public School which gave him a chance to take up his studies in tandem with his passion for the sport. Contrary to the expectation of his parents, Nadella was not able to get through the toughest entrance examinations for the elite Indian Institute of Technology. He accepted the options available to him with grace and today it is no more a secret that ‘not cracking IIT’ never held back his professional growth in any way!
Nadella himself agrees with the futility of branding and judging the capability of a student just based on whether he/she could make it through IITs or not. This mentality, we all know, still exists! Sathya’s journey stands as a great source of example and motivation.
Embracing Maturity, Understanding Priorities
An interesting and worth quoting excerpt from the book is when Nadella made an unconventional choice. After marriage, due to some legal restrictions, his wife could not get a visa for the US. Nadella already had the green card but the rules restricted spouse entry. However, it was possible for someone with an H1-B visa to get a visa for the spouse as well. Nadella’s priority was clear as always – to stay with his Anu. He went on to get the green card downgraded and get an H1-B visa instead! As a result, Anu got the visa and the couple could live together!
The Impermanence
In the quest for his spiritual curiosity, the author seems to have been influenced greatly by the religion of Buddhism. The major pillars of Buddhism – empathy and impermanence – shape his overall outlook and motivation.
Impermanence is a beautiful concept that simply means that nothing which is real, exists forever. When the first son was born to Nadella and Anu (his wife), they were devastated to know that he was suffering from Cerebral Palsy. It was Anu who emphasised that the couple should not focus on ‘what happened to them’ but on ‘how they would assist Zain to navigate through life against the odds!’ The belief in the impermanence of things, situations or emotions, opens the window of hope! That no matter howsoever impassable the present situation may seem, it too may fade and give way to a better tomorrow!
Principles from Cricket
Cricket has always been more than just a form of sport for Nadella. He summarises the three very crucial principles that Cricket taught him. The learnings still stay with him as a source of guidance.
The first principle is to compete vigorously and with passion in the face of uncertainty and intimidation. You can be impressed by the opponent but never be in awe of the opponent’s strength.
On reflection, a second principle is simply the importance of putting your team first, ahead of your personal statistics and recognition. One brilliant character who does not put the team first can destroy the entire team.
As a third principle, Nadella got the central importance of leadership when his team leader gave Nadella another chance to bowl just to ensure that he retains his confidence.
THE LEADER, THE VISIONARY, THE OPTIMIST
Empathy – The Cornerstone of Leadership
“But it is impossible to be an empathetic leader sitting in an office behind a computer screen all day. An empathetic leader needs to be out in the world, meeting people where they live and seeing how the technology we create affects their daily activities.”
Soon after taking the leadership role, Nadella went to mark a major change in the Senior Leadership Team retreats by scheduling the customer visits during those retreats. Different genres of customers like schools, universities, large enterprises, etc. were now often paid visits – a seamless source of empathy and motivation for the leader. |
“A leader must see the external opportunities and the internal capability and culture—and all of the connections among them—and respond to them before they become obvious parts of the conventional wisdom. It’s an art form, not a science. And a leader will not always get it right.”
“We needed to ensure that we viewed our opportunity not through a rearview mirror, but with a more future-oriented perspective.”
“Leaders need to act and shape the culture to root out biases and create an environment where everyone can effectively advocate for themselves.”
On ‘envy’ versus ‘zeal’
Nadella considers motivation to be the source of work commitment. But what should be the source of motivation – envy or zeal? Well, envy can motivate too but that motivation is ephemeral and negative. The real source of motivation should be the real competitive zeal.
“My approach is to lead with a sense of purpose and pride in what we do, not envy or combativeness.”
Listening
Nadella has emphasised the significant role of ‘listening’ in doing justice with all his professional roles and capacity.
“Listening was the most important thing I accomplished each day because it would build the foundation of my leadership for years to come.”
“Having listened with great intensity and curiosity during those first several months, it was time to act and to do so with confidence and conviction.”
Cultural Change and Growth Mindset.
Citing excerpts from Dweck’s book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Nadella stresses the idea of a ‘growth mindset’ – the mindset of those who are always ready for new learnings and correcting upon their mistakes. For all his actions in his professional capacity, Nadella tries to connect the growth mindset with the required cultural reset!
“In fact, the phrase we use to describe our emerging culture is ‘growth mindset,’ because it’s about every individual, every one of us having that attitude—that mindset—of being able to overcome any constraint, stand up to any challenge, making it possible for us to grow and, thereby, for the company to grow.”
Smart Partnership
Nadella also tries to prove that partnerships need to be built and nurtured with patience and maturity. A smart partnership is not a ‘zero-sum game’ where the gain of one comes with the loss of another. Instead, the smartness and maturity make it a ‘pie that grows for everyone’. The smart partnership is also the prerequisite to sustaining innovation-producing and customer-pleasing products.
“Partnerships are journeys of mutual exploration, and so we need to be open to unexpected synergies and fresh ways to collaborate. “
“Do we always agree? Of course not. But we always seek to listen intelligently, seeking to understand not just the words we are hearing but the underlying intentions. “
Technology Diffusion
Technology diffusion refers to the spread of technology and its resulting economic consequences. It is the ‘intensity’ and ‘speed’ with which new technology is adopted, as per the local context, that makes the difference between rich and poor countries. Nadella, therefore observes, that governments of the less developed countries should focus less on attracting Silicon Valley companies and more on growing local tech entrepreneurs. This also means that all the countries must adopt the emerging technology and apply it to grow industries in which they have a comparative economic advantage. This, he compares with the mathematical expression of “global maxima” – the highest point of a function.
Validation from the Past: This is proved by taking examples of the Industrial revolution. Though Britain was the source of the innovations that accounted for its growth, it was the rapid adoption of these innovations coming from Britain and timely investment in local enabling infrastructure and human resources that led to the growth of Belgium.
Validation from Present: Malawi, a small country in Africa, demonstrated successfully how the rapid adoption of mobiles leapfrogged its cellular network, ICT development and mobile payment penetration. Similarly, the Vision 2020 initiative of Rwanda helped in making education more accessible by leveraging mobile connectivity and the cloud.
According to David McKenzie of the World Bank, the ‘intensity’ of technology adoption will benefit the small industries more by adding efficiency and time-saving in stock-keeping, record-keeping, and planning, which may result in less spoilage and less downtime.
Some cases quoted in the novel show the mass benefit of technology diffusion
“Our industry does not respect tradition. What it respects is innovation.” |
The Trust
Throughout the book, one can infer that in all his professional roles and challenges, Nadella seems to remain inspired by the core ideology that he believes in! While describing the need for rewriting the digital publishing laws, he beautifully emphasised the central element of ‘trust’ among citizens, organisations and governments. He also admits that it is not possible to shrink the essence of trust into any one definition. It is built up in multiple layers!
In this context too, Nadella, being a coder by heart, has given a precise ‘equation’ to sum up how the entities can gain trust over time.
“Empathy + Shared values + Safety and Reliability = Trust over time”
Building trust takes time and evolves in phases. First, there should be a sense of empathy for the intentions, concerns and underlying principles of the different people or partners involved. Secondly, it includes building up shared moral benchmarks and making sincere efforts to reflect them in actions. And finally the comforting feel of being ‘secure’ in relying on a person, relations or partnership!
“Trust is a sacred responsibility.”
Yes, a responsibility. The effort is required at two levels – first to attain it and then to preserve it. When someone reposes trust in you, it implicitly makes you responsible to preserve it. It is not only sacred but also fragile. And, thus, needs to be handled with care.
“Consistency over time is trust”
It is a commitment that needs continuous reinforcement! Thus, meeting the ‘‘sacred responsibility” to preserve one’s trust is not a “one-time achievement”, but a “lifetime investment”. Consider, for example, some product-based companies known for their quality and creativity. The company can have a huge customer base as well as goodwill only if it keeps consistently delivering products which are of the expected quality!
At the same time, Nadella believes that reason and logic must not be sent to oblivion in the process of putting one’s faith in someone!.
“The Sanskrit word vishvasa communicates trustworthiness and reliability…..Shraddha, which connotes a religious sense of faith, trust, and belief—but rather than a blind faith, it is a faith reminiscent of President Ronald Reagan’s famous line, “Trust but verify.””
In this context, Nadella has offered six ways of building increased societal trust in the era of digital transformation:
Artificial Intelligence and Empathy
Instead of being carried away by the fiction and movies showing AI taking over humans in future, Nadella advocates building arguments toward a ‘better’ future where AI and humans function as hybrids.
“Empathy, which is so difficult to replicate in machines, will be invaluable in the human-AI world”.
“Cognitive scientist and philosopher Colin Allen concludes, “Just as we can envisage machines with increasing degrees of autonomy from human oversight, we can envisage machines whose controls involve increasing degrees of sensitivity to things that matter ethically. Not perfect machines, to be sure, but better.”
One example of what the human-AI hybrid would look like can be seen in terms of the aviation industry – which is no longer seen as “artificial flight” but only as a flight!
Nadella views that business leaders have an important responsibility to replace the labour-saving and automation mindset with a ‘maker and creation’ mindset.
He believes that creativity, judgement and accountability will still remain the areas where humans would enjoy the final say. Humans’ drive to create will remain central, with technology only being able to enrich it. Similarly, technology can provide diagnosis or legal advice but the ultimate accountability for outcomes lies with humans!
The book holds many detailed and interesting references and explanations about ideas of making the future better. The vast opportunities in the emerging and disrupting areas of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Augmented Reality and Meta verse have been explored. Nadella’s core reliance on empathy, throughout the description, also opens a completely new perspective of how effectively to ‘democratise the access to such applications”! You can explore it in detail by yourself by going through the book. Click here to purchase the book
Contact the author: deepjyoti@penperspectives.com
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