October 15, 2017
“This is not the book to describe the ins and outs of cricket, but it is a book that cannot avoid the metaphor of cricket and business.
Like most South Asians, I somehow fell in love with this most English of games on the dusty matting wickets of the Deccan Plateau in southern India.”
October 15, 2017
“When I was ten I returned to Hyderabad, and for the next six years I truly and surely fell in love with cricket as a player for Hyderabad Public School (HPS)”
October 15, 2017
“Cricket for me is like a wondrous Russian novel with plots and subplots played out over the course of multiple acts. In the end, one brilliant knock, or three deftly bowled balls, can change the complexion of a game.
There are three stories from my all-too-brief cricketing past that speak very directly to business and leadership principles I use even today as a CEO.”
October 15, 2017
“The first principle is to compete vigorously and with passion in the face of uncertainty and intimidation.”
October 15, 2017
“It showed me that you must always have respect for your competitor, but don’t be in awe. Go and compete.”
October 15, 2017
“a second principle is simply the importance of putting your team first, ahead of your personal statistics and recognition”
October 15, 2017
“There are of course many lessons and principles one can take from cricket, but for me a third is the central importance of leadership”
October 15, 2017
“Our team captain in retrospect showed me what real leadership looks like. When my over had ended (that is, when I had thrown six balls), he replaced me with himself even though he was a better batsman than bowler. He quickly took the wicket—the batsman was out. Customarily taking a wicket that efficiently would argue for him remaining in as a bowler. But instead, he immediately handed the ball back to me and I took seven wickets of my own. Why did he do it? I surmised he wanted me to get my confidence back.”
October 15, 2017
“I think that is perhaps the number one thing that leaders have to do: to bolster the confidence of the people you’re leading. ”
October 15, 2017
“The arrival of our son, Zain, in August 1996 had been a watershed moment in Anu’s and my life together. His suffering from asphyxia in utero, had changed our lives in ways we had not anticipated. ”
October 15, 2017
“My son’s condition requires that I draw daily upon the very same passion for ideas and empathy that I learned from my parents. And I do this both at home and at work. Whether I am meeting with people in Latin America, the Middle East, or one of the inner cities of America, I am always searching to understand people’s thoughts, feelings, and ideas.”
October 15, 2017
“There’s a great scene in Sylvester Stallone’s Creed, the latest of his Rocky movie series. The champ jots down on a piece of paper a workout regimen for his protégé, who quickly snaps a photo of it on his smartphone. As the kid jogs away, Rocky yells, “Don’t you want the paper?”
October 15, 2017
“I got it right here, it’s already up in the cloud,” the kid replies.
The aging Rocky looks skyward. “What cloud? What cloud?” Rocky may not know about the cloud, but millions of others rely on it.”
October 15, 2017
“And while Microsoft was struggling with low market share in search, Steve had invested in it because it would require the company to compete in a sector beyond Windows and Office and build great technology—which he saw as the future of our industry. There was tremendous pressure for Microsoft to answer Amazon’s growing cloud business. This was the business he was inviting me to join.
“You should think about it, though,” Steve added. “This might be your last job at Microsoft, because if you fail there is no parachute. You may just crash with it.” I wondered at the time whether he meant it as a grim bit of humor or as a perfectly straightforward warning. I’m still not quite sure which it was.”
October 15, 2017
“So one night, after a long day at work, I decided to drive over to Building 88, which housed the Internet search engineering team. I wanted to walk the hallways and see who these people were. How else could I empathize with the team I was being asked to lead? It was about 9 p.m., but the parking lot was packed. I’d expected to see a few stragglers finishing up their day but, no, the whole team was there working at their desks and eating take-out food. I didn’t really talk to anyone. But what I observed caused me to wonder: What gets people to work like this? Something important must be happening in Building 88.
Seeing the team that night, their commitment and dedication, clinched it for me. I told Steve, “Okay, I’m in.” What color was my parachute? I didn’t have one.”
October 30, 2017
“we had to become great at consumer product design. We knew we needed great technology, but we also understood we needed a great experience, one you want to engage with time and again. ”
October 30, 2017
“User scorecards determine which is the most effective. Sometimes, seemingly tiny differences can mean a lot. Something as simple as the color or size of a type font may profoundly impact the willingness of consumers to engage, triggering behavioral variations that may be worth tens of millions in revenue. Now Microsoft had to master this new approach to product design.”
October 30, 2017
“Shortly after I took over, the company issued this statement: “Nadella and his team are tasked with leading Microsoft’s enterprise transformation into the cloud and providing the technology roadmap and vision for the future of business computing.” Steve had said the transformation would not happen overnight, but we were running out of time”
October 30, 2017
“I also recognized this was a team that cared deeply about enterprises, those customers with exacting and sophisticated computing needs.”
October 30, 2017
“Leadership means making choices and then rallying the team around those choices. One thing I had learned from my dad’s experience as a senior Indian government official was that few tasks are more difficult than building a lasting institution. The choice of leading through consensus versus fiat is a false one. Any institution-building comes from having a clear vision and culture that works to motivate progress both top-down and bottom-up.”
October 30, 2017
“Microsoft had long held that the open-source software from Linux was the enemy. We couldn’t afford to cling to that attitude any longer. We had to meet the customers where they were and, more importantly, we needed to ensure that we viewed our opportunity not through a rearview mirror, but with a more future-oriented perspective. We changed the name of the product from Windows Azure to Microsoft Azure to make it clear that our cloud was not just about Windows.”
October 30, 2017
“The cloud business taught me a series of lessons I would carry with me for years to come. Perhaps the most important is this: 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. But the batting average for how well a leader does this is going to define his or her longevity in business. It’s an insight that would serve me well when an even bigger set of challenges was presented to me as CEO.”
Notes From: Satya Nadella. “Hit Refresh.” iBooks.
Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itunes.apple.com/dk/book/hit-refresh/id1128878569?mt=11
