Microsoft Company’s Culture

Microsoft Company’s Culture

 

Introduction

Company culture involves a set of shared principles, objectives, attitudes, and techniques that characterize an organization. It defines the best way to behave within an organization, how employees feel about their work, and what they do to make the company achieve its goals. A company’s culture may be an outcome of several decisions made over time, or it may be articulated and intentionally refined. An active company culture enables the workers to understand what is expected of them and act accordingly. While some organizations comprise a team-based culture that prioritizes workers’ participation at all levels, others consist of a culture that values traditional, formal, or hierarchical management. A productive culture that consists of values that focus on the overall organization and its objectives is essential for the success of a company (Schiff, 2014). Most managers of successful companies often communicate their cultural identities to employees. They communicate to them their values and how they define the company.

The culture of Microsoft before it changed its culture

The organizational culture of Microsoft Corporations allows flexibility at the workplace and focuses on the company’s wants in the market for both computer software and hardware goods. Its corporate culture consists of its values, traditions, and behaviors expected from its workers. Microsoft Corporation keeps on developing due to its positive and productive culture (Esposito & Saltarello, 2014). It uses its company culture to enhance innovation and to ensure customer satisfaction. As one of the leading companies in the operating system market, Microsoft has to retain the cultural features that allow it to attract innovation and high-quality output effectively. The long-term achievements of Microsoft depend not only on the corresponding competence of its human resources but also on its active company culture (IBARRA & RATTAN, 2018). Initially, the work environment of Microsoft company was not as collaborative as it became after renovating its culture. It had an inherited culture that consisted of the elements of a fixed mindset, a hierarchical structure, a habit of knowing it all, and an internal concentration during learning, nurturing, and taking risks (McCollum, 2016). However, through the leadership of Satya Nadella, Microsoft adopted several programs and processes that enhanced its accessibility. The culture of Microsoft was transformed from inheritance.

Steps taken by Microsoft Company took to change its culture and analyze their effectiveness.

The following are some of the steps taken by the Microsoft company to change its organizational culture.

Planning

Planning involves surveying the workforce, securing buy-in from managers, and knowing what requires a change and what does not require a change. During one of their Shareholders meetings, the CEO of Microsoft corporations, Satya Nadella, talked about the company’s ability to change its culture. According to him, being able to change its culture was one of the most significant indicators of the company’s future achievements.

Building

This step involves talking about the changes you want to observe and being on the watch out for how the changes are initiated. After coming up with a decent idea of what was happening with Microsoft’s initial culture, Satya had to spot the workforce’s significant influencers. Together with these people, he managed to change the culture of the organization altogether.

Maintaining

Maintaining involves adjusting the management processes of the people in the organization to ensure they agree with the new culture. The most critical stage of transforming a company culture occurs immediately after the renovation had taken place. Many organizations always go back to their primary cultures if things fail to work at this stage (McCollum, 2016). However, the CEO of Microsoft had this stage carefully maintained to avoid reversions. Because Microsoft successfully passed this crucial stage, it had to make changes to its workers’ talent practices, just like all the other organizations that have passed this stage. This was one of the most useful transformations that had to happen around the performance management of Microsoft.

The impact on employees and other statistics, such as increased retention rates.

Besides motivating its workers through their efforts on human rights and Global Human Rights Statement, Microsoft often invests in its workers through various training and development programs that support and enhance the growth of the mindset. The company’s strength lies in its culture based on the growth of the mindset and the talents of its workers. It gives enough space for them to grow, to change, and to learn, leading to higher intention rates (Kochhar, 2015). According to the CEO of the company, the potential is not predetermined. Instead, it should be nurtured, and that is why he often encourages his coworkers to always be ready to learn and try without being afraid to fail. Besides caring about its customers and becoming more diverse and inclusive in all that it does, Microsoft has ensured making a difference in the lives of its employees and the entire world. The following is how culture has impacted the employees of Microsoft.

Training and development

The development of their mindset was initiated by valued learning usually offered to them by the company. Microsoft workers are always trained in adapting to new ideas, learning from failure, and embracing changes and challenges through the full range of learning opportunities offered to them.

Respecting human rights

Microsoft respects the rights of its workers. It demonstrates its devotion to respecting their rights through its Global Rights Statement and its involvement if the United Nations World Compact.

Wellness and safety

Microsoft has always devoted itself to supporting its workers’ safety and well-being, not only during work but also in their personal lives. Besides the comprehensive advantages of Microsoft, it’s Occupational Health and Safety program has always ensured the safety of its employees.

Evaluation of whether the steps were efficient and effective

Even all the leading and the most valuable organizations in the world understand how hard it is to change a culture. Luckily, Microsoft was able to change its culture successfully. Through its concentration on the change of behavior and science of change, Microsoft managed to reduce the complexity of the process and make long-lasting changes to its cultural values and employees’ behavior (Ibarra et al., 2018). Due to its effective leadership, the company managed to develop practical steps, that is, plan, build, and maintain, that correctly changed its culture to allow its success. The main objective of its change of culture was to embrace the readiness to transform and to develop new sets of behaviors that all workers could quickly adapt. Companies with poor images should adopt the same process adopted by Microsoft, as it is most likely to work for them too.

Conclusion

In conclusion, due to its influential organizational culture, Microsoft has earned an excellent reputation for diligence when participating in the new opportunities created or formerly dominated by its innovative startups all through its history. When it developed its first primary product, its observers and competitors ridiculed for the fact that the product was not even close to matching the market leaders. However, its active managers and workers initiated by its influential organizational culture led to its tremendous and long-lasting success.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Esposito, D., & Saltarello, A. (2014). Microsoft. Net-architecting applications for the enterprise. Microsoft Press.

IBARRA, H., & RATTAN, A. (2018). Microsoft: instilling a growth mindset. London Business School Review, 29(3), 50-53.

Ibarra, H., Rattan, A., & Johnston, A. (2018). Satya Nadella at Microsoft: Instilling a growth mindset. Harvard Business Review case no. LBS128 (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Kochhar, P. S., Thung, F., Nagappan, N., Zimmermann, T., & Lo, D. (2015, April). Understanding the test automation culture of app developers. In 2015 IEEE 8th International Conference on Software Testing, Verification, and Validation (ICST) (pp. 1-10). IEEE.

McCollum, T. (2016). Great culture, great CEO: employees favor CEOs when they are satisfied with their company’s culture. Internal Auditor, 73(5), 13-15.

Schiff, J. B. (2014). Building a sustainable cost leadership culture. Strategic Finance, 96(3), 47-52.