Organizational culture eats strategy for breakfast.
~ Peter Drucker, Leading Authority on Organizational Development

When I picked up a copy of Fast Company last month for some airplane reading, I became completely captivated by the unfolding story of a first-time CEO boldly leading a radical transformation of one of the 21st century’s largest technology organizations, Microsoft. I immediately downloaded his new book, Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft‘s Soul & Imagine a Better Future for Everyone

The Story Four years ago, in the brutal, high-velocity environment of the technology giants, Satya Nadella, an Indian computer scientist, became an unlikely choice for the job and an unlikely hero. Microsoft was falling behind its arrivals and faced huge challenges, struggling to adapt and grow.

As a long-time Microsoft insider and manager, Nadella knew its culture well: ultra-competitive with people trying to progress by proving themselves smarter than others. Strong silos limited lateral, interdisciplinary communication. Microsoft‘s past success and its international prominence led to a pride in its intelligence and status that affected its interest and willingness to partner with others. In Nadella‘s words, it was a culture of “know-it-alls.” He believed that the only path forward required a radical shift in the entire worldwide, 120,000+ employee enterprise. How?

His vision is that Microsoft will significantly increase its adaptive capacity and assure industry leadership through extraordinary performance by hitting ‘refresh.’ This would require a transformation away from internal competition and silos to a cultural environment marked by two fundamental characteristics: Empathy and Collaboration. Only through strong connection and synergy throughout Microsoft could the fully engaged energies and talents of all employees be harnessed to thrive amidst change. Instead of being “know-it-alls” leaders, managers, and staff need to become “learn-it-alls.”

Anything is possible for a company when its culture is about listening, learning, and harnessing individual passions and talents to the company’s mission. ~ Satya Nadella

Nadella also believes that an internal environment of collaboration is critical to enable more successful collaboration with strong, external partners that will become invaluable allies, making Microsoft smarter because its partners add perspectives that “help you see around corners.”

Relevance to Your Organization I find Satya Nadella’s vision to be prophetic for these times. It is not just an exotic story about an elite, corporate giant with a charismatic, new leader. It is a bold AND practical example of the essential role that leadership can play in every business, nonprofit, or government agency to inspire the organization to better understand itself in its mission space, come together, learn together, and rise together to overcome every challenge and consistently excel in the delivery of the mission.

The waves of change are not only affecting Microsoft’s operations. They are arriving with varying patterns of intensity in the operations of nonprofits, businesses, and government agencies everywhere.

Each organization‘s capacity to deliver superior results as it fulfills its mission depends upon healthy functioning. Organizational health and culture are deeply interrelated. The culture of an organization is its basic personality expressed in the essential ways its people interact and work. These self-sustaining patterns of behavior determine how well things are done. Culture EATS strategy for breakfast!

Nadella understands that a large organization culture is not easy to change. However, it is malleable and continually renews and evolves, affected by shifts in leadership, changing circumstances, and adopted strategies. In a small nonprofit organization or family business, the values, personality, and behaviors of the executive director or president are often the primary source of the the culture of the organization. In larger, more complex organizations the personality pattern continues to evolve over time from the collective values, beliefs, and principles of leaders and employees rooted in history, purpose, strategy, management style, and operating environment.

Here are three major observations emerging in the organizational development field about the significance of your organization‘s culture.

• Culture has sources of emotional energy and influence that can be tapped to accelerate needed action.
• When the force of the culture and strategic priorities are well-aligned, people & feelings help propel progress.
• Organizations that report consciously using cultural approaches indicate sustainable improvement in organizational pride and emotional commitment.

Lessons to Apply

1. Be Active and Engaged in Shaping Your Organization’s Cultural Health -When Satya Nadella assessed the needs for Microsoft to succeed in the future, he determined that shifting the culture was a powerful strategy. You can start 2018 with an inquiry to identify patterns of behavior that define and shape the culture of your organization. Then, you can use a structured assessment to examine ways to build on cultural strengths, address gaps, and positively shift patterns of behavior that may be limiting your organization’s potential impact. I will email you a free assessment on request. mark@decisionres.com
2. Use Collaboration as the Secret Sauce – Nonprofits, businesses, and government agencies all must turn their limited financial and human resources into results for clients, customers, communites, donors, investors, and taxpayers. The bottom line is different across sectors, but the path to success is the same___ unified, collaborative effort. Every leader needs to rethink, model, and message collaboration that unifies the organization. Satya Nadella is on a mission to convert a highly competitive organization environment of know-it-alls into a collaborative environment of learn-it-alls. The size of the challenge does not deter him because he knows he is on the right path.
3. Remember that Organizational Culture is a Journey – Nadella acknowledges that cultural transformation is a process over time, not an inspiring speech or a top-down order. This journey requires leadership and leadership requires vision, will, engagement, partnering and learning.

Practice Tip #14

After you do an assessment, convene the leadership team for a conversation to apply Satya Nadella’s algorithm for cultural transformation… HIT REFRESH: RENEW; RETHINK; REFRAME. The culture of your nonprofit, government agency or department, or business can be actively reimagined and reshaped. It always starts with a dialogue among differing points of view to build perspective about what to do.

Words of Wisdom

I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game, IT IS THE GAME. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.
~ Louis Gerstner, IBM CEO who led historic turnaround

You reap what you sow. There are no shortcuts.
~Stephen Covey, Principle-Centered Leadership

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.
~ Marie Curie, first person to win two Nobel prizes