May 12, 2025 • 21 mins
He is the opposite of Elon Musk and "Founder Mode" being promoted by some of the loudest voices in business today. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talks about human-centered leadership. It's what Lone Rock Leadership Co-Founder Russ Hill says is the core of the 3rd Leader approach advocated in the Lead In 30 course. Staya Nadella transformed Microsoft from a competitive, siloed culture into a collaborative powerhouse that grew from $300 billion to $3 trillion in market value.
Link to full interview between Adam Grant and Satya Nadella: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0E8eUQ5KXg
• Contrasting leadership styles: "founder mode" (directive, demanding) vs. "third leader" (participatory, human-centered)
• Microsoft's extraordinary growth under Nadella: 10x market cap, over 1,000% stock price increase
• The "Model, Coach, Care" management framework that develops great managers
• How psychological safety and vulnerability create better business outcomes
• Growth mindset as a core cultural principle: transitioning from "know-it-alls" to "learn-it-alls"
• The power of continuous learning through daily human interactions
• Leadership that values both high performance and human dignity
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The CEO of Microsoft reveals why great managers
matter more than cutting-edgetech, how to refound a legacy
company and why humility is theultimate superpower I picked it
up from my dad.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
He had this diary.
He would write every day wherehe would sort of put tasks done.
People met, ideas generated.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
You cannot be serious , strengthen your ability to
lead in less than 30 minutes.
I've been telling you over thelast several months, maybe the
last year or so, about thisraging debate that's going on
out there in the marketplaceabout the most effective way to
lead.
We capture it in Lead in 30 bytalking about the first and
(00:48):
second leader and thenintroducing this concept of the
third leader, these leaderpatterns.
If you think about contrast afew people.
Okay.
So on one end, kind of undersecond leader category and for
those of you who haven't beenthrough Lead in 30, the course
you you can just understand thatwe call this the general.
It's a standard saluteleadership style in uh, in the
(01:10):
all-in podcast, in differentplaces they call it the founder
mode.
That's what the airbnb foundercalled it founder mode to give
this famous speech I'm going totalk more about in upcoming
episodes.
There's a lot of noise out thereabout founder mode and it's
that you should be reallydirective as a leader of the
organization.
You should be very demanding.
You shouldn't apologize for it.
So if you think about, inmodern business and today's
(01:34):
business climate, who are reallythe second leaders that are
advocating that position?
Well, there are a bunch of them.
I'll give you just a couple ofnames.
Certainly in the past, steveJobs leaned into that hardcore.
Jeff Bezos was that way,certainly at Amazon.
And then currently Elon Musk.
I mean Elon Musk saying thatnothing you know.
You look at quotes from him.
(01:54):
Nothing transformational comesout of a leader that only works
40 hours a week.
He advocates a 100 hour a weekwork week.
He talks about being on thegrid all the time.
There, in a podcast I waslistening to just a few months
ago, they're making fun of theStarbucks former CEO saying that
you know you shouldn't reallybother employees after six
(02:15):
o'clock at night.
You know those that are workingthe day shift.
So that's really this, thisargument for all in and for
founder mode, whatever you wantto call it like get results and
do it, and if you don't want tobe part of that team and it's
demanding, then that's on you,right.
And then you have contrast thatwith this other approach, which
we call the third leader, whichis more participatory
(02:38):
leadership where, yeah,absolutely You're driven, the
results matter a ton, and whereyou have to to.
You want to grow and you wantto transform, but you do it in a
way that reflects or oracknowledges, respects the fact
that you're leading humans, andso, on that side, one of the
most powerful voices is the ceoof microsoft, sacha nadela.
(03:00):
Right, just look at a few.
Well, I'm going to get into someof the stats in a minute and
then I'm going to play a cliplike an extended clip of an
interview that Satya did that, Ithink, is just fascinating
where he talks about severalaspects of leadership that
really they're foundational andcore to what we teach and lead
(03:20):
in 30 around being the thirdleader.
How you lead matters.
It matters so much.
But let me get into some of theresults that, uh, we'll just
that you got to know that mostof you aren't aware of.
Most of us haven't been payingattention because microsoft
doesn't get in the headlinesmuch.
I mean, it's all these othertech companies and yet what
sacha and his team have beendoing over the last decades
(03:41):
unbelievable anyway.
Welcome into the lead in 30podcast.
In less than 30 minutes, wegive you an idea, a framework,
an interview In this case thatwe're going to play for you, a
best practices story, somethingfor you to consider in your
ongoing effort to improvestrength and enhance, upgrade
your ability to lead otherpeople.
The market is not static leadother people.
(04:07):
The market is not static, it'snot stagnant, it's not standing
still.
You have to be adjusting,improving, upgrading the way you
lead people, otherwise you'regoing to be left behind in the
current market, which is movingat breakneck speed.
If you want to find out moreabout our firm, the work we do
with the executive teams on theconsulting side of our company,
or if you want to find out moreabout our off the shelf training
for mid-level managers, we'vegot four main courses around the
(04:30):
areas that for 20 years, we'vejust seen organization after
organization.
It doesn't matter whether it'sa restaurant chain or an
automobile manufacturer or ahealthcare company or whatever
it is.
It doesn't matter the industry.
These are the four areas thatmid-level managers have to be
trained in in order to scale.
You can find out all about thaton our firm's website.
(04:51):
Lone rock leadership is the nameof the company lone rockio.
That website's expanding everyweek.
We're super proud of what'sthere and what's on the way
videos, articles for you to read, things to pds brochures.
You can order all that kind ofstuff or you could just purchase
the courses.
Okay, and, by the way, I'm RussHilt, this is your first
podcast, welcome in.
(05:12):
I make my living coaching,consulting senior executive
teams and I'm just one of theco-founders, one member of the
team at Lone Rock.
Leadership and the people I getto work alongside are
unbelievable.
A lot of the ideas, a lot ofthe things that I get to talk
about, I'm the mouthpiece for onthis, on these episodes that
come from the geniuses, the justincredible, seasoned, wise
(05:34):
people that I that I get to workwith.
Okay, satya at Microsoft.
When he took over Microsoft,300 billion in market
capitalization, 300 billion andnow 3 trillion, 10x the.
The year he took over, revenuewas 86 billion.
Last couple of years, over 200billion.
(05:56):
He's grown at 86 to over 200billion.
The um the share price when hetook over, when Satya took over
Microsoft, the share was $37 ashare on the stock market, $425
in this month.
That's over 1,000% growth.
If you bought a share ofMicrosoft when Satya took over
(06:21):
and you've held on to it'vegained a thousand percent like.
That's unbelievable.
And he doesn't make a lot ofheadlines and yet the way he
leads is in stark contrast to alot of the people that grab the
headlines of the businesspodcasts that you listen to, of
the, the mainstream media, thebroadcast media, they love to
(06:44):
pay attention to thesecontroversial characters.
And yet here's sacha justleading like a third leader.
What we teach about clarity,alignment, movement you're going
to hear those totally thinkabout those three core areas.
We teach it in our course ofclarity.
A leader who scales knows howto create clarity.
They know how to buildalignment.
They know how to generatemovement.
I'm going to play this clip.
(07:05):
This is um.
This is an interview that umthat sacha did with adam grant.
I love adam grant.
He's written some amazing books.
A few of them are duds, butnobody bats a thousand.
And uh, and adam is from thewharton school of business where
I went and did an executivecourse, uh, which was super cool
to be able to go out there andhave a little bit of an
(07:27):
experience there.
I've got a lot of respect forAdam.
He generates a ton of content.
I appreciate that.
Again, none of us agree witheverything everyone says, or
lots of things that Adamadvocates in the world of
leadership that I just franklydon't agree with.
I think they're a waste of time.
I think that they're not backedup by real world application.
They're more driven by kind ofhis worldview and not so much.
(07:49):
There's not so much of abusiness case or his political
views.
So, but you know he'd say thesame thing of anybody else.
So, but, but, but he puts out aton of great content and I
appreciate the contribution he'strying to make out there.
So Adam Grant at the WhartonSchool interviewing Satya
Nadella, and they start off bytalking about this transition
from the pandemic to thepost-pandemic world.
This interview is a couple ofyears old.
(08:10):
I'm going to put a link in theshow notes I'll have our team do
that so you can click to thefull interview if you want to
watch it.
It's about 30 minutes long.
I'm only going to play like 10minutes of it here.
And Sat as talking about thistransformation of back to work
and the value that he's seen.
Listen to him, talk about this.
This is a guy leading a techcompany, right, his company
(08:33):
sells technology solutions toenterprises.
That's where they make most oftheir money getting you to buy
teams, getting you to buyOneNote, getting you to buy Word
and PowerPoint.
They sell technology solutions.
And yet he says, more valuablethan tech solutions in your
organization is the, is thequality of training, is the
(08:57):
quality of training?
Listen to this the quality oftraining and development you
give to managers.
So he'll start talking aboutthat and then he'll get into
some other concepts.
I'll come back at the end andshare a few thoughts.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Here's Satya Nadella with Adam Grant and so,
therefore, managerial capabilityquite honestly, I think tech
companies in general have hadthis thing about hey, it's all
about technology and managementis not the critical thing,
except everybody's realizing andwaking up and saying, look,
leadership and management andtechnological excellence both go
(09:28):
together and we actually haveto put our money where our mouth
is and focus on building thatmanagerial capability.
And so we have this frameworkAdam called model coach care,
which is sort of the thing thatwe say every manager needs to
sort of exhibit in terms of realskills, and I'm glad we got
that started a few years beforethe pandemic and it's really
(09:50):
helped us a lot during thepandemic.
But I think that it's nowbecome really clear to me that
this is what the company'ssuccess depends on great
everyday management, becauseotherwise, you know, it's very,
very hard to tackle some ofthese things that we're talking
about.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
That approach of model coach care, I think has
been central to one of the majorculture changes that you've
spearheaded.
Of the major culture changesthat you've spearheaded, there
was a time and I'm not going tolocate it, but you can when
Microsoft was externally knownfor a lot of internal
competition.
Forced rankings that pittedpeople against each other were
pretty popular and you came inand challenged that dynamic and
said look, we want tocollaborate, we want to be one
Microsoft.
(10:29):
Can you help us understand howyou made that change real?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, I mean there were two things that I tried to
focus on.
Quite frankly, the way I cameat it, Adam was starting even
with the very basics of beingessentially the first
non-founder CEO.
I felt the real need to in somesense re-found the company,
borrowing the phrase that ReidHoffman uses, which I like a lot
(10:55):
, because from time to timecompanies need that moment where
you need to reground yourself,you know, and starting with both
the sense of purpose andmission, like why do we exist?
And if we sort of disappeared,would anybody miss us To remind?
Because I think every one of uswho work in any company need
that anchoring in order to thengo on to make all the decisions
(11:16):
and work we do.
So I focused a lot on thatpurpose and mission.
And then the other one was toreally put forth the culture
that we aspire to, and that'swhere I borrowed from Carol
Dweck's work on growth mindset,which has been a godsend to us,
because it's really helped us gofrom being these know-it-alls
to learn-it-alls, at least as anaspirational state, and the
(11:40):
good news is the day you say wehave the growth mindset is when
you become a know-it-all, and so, therefore, it has helped us
continuously think of this as,hey, a process of constant
renewal, and that mission andculture has given us perhaps
Adam, more of that permission tolook inwards, look to what
(12:02):
systems, processes, behaviorsmake us successful in the first
place, and reinforce them.
And then, the same thing whatsystems, processes and behaviors
make us sort of not successful,and then get rid of them, or at
least try to not have themreappear as often as they do,
because there are regressionsalways.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
One of the things that I would love to hear your
reaction to is I've found insome of my latest research that
it's not enough just to admitthat you have things to learn as
a leader.
It's helpful to ask forfeedback and open the door, but
what's much more powerful is toactually criticize yourself out
loud, because that way, you'renot just claiming that you're
receptive, you are proving thatyou can take it, and one of the
(12:46):
things I've admired about yourleadership for a long time is
the humility and vulnerabilitythat you show, that you're not
afraid to admit when you don'thave all the answers or when you
made a mistake or got somethingwrong.
Can you talk to us a little bitabout how you built the
confidence to share yourmistakes and what that looks
like doing it effectively?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
That's a great question, you know.
I think a little bit of thatcomes from, I think, feeling
very secure, right, I mean oneof the things that I was talking
to one of my members of oursenior leadership team, and you
know he's really doing afantastic job of what he calls
the safe space, right, I meanthe psychological safety that
(13:27):
one creates around you,especially the most senior you
are, becomes, I think, superimportant, becomes, I think,
super important, and to yourpoint, one technique of that is
to share your own fallibility,because that gives confidence to
others.
And so I think that that's, youknow.
Again, I go at it two ways.
One is that personal trait ofsort of having feeling secure
(13:52):
leads you to be more vulnerable.
But then the real issue is,systemically, how do you help
people feel secure?
And so that is where thecultural element of having
psychological safety as being afirst-class thing that's talked
about, where people are notjumping down people's throats
the first time they admit amistake which, by the way, I do
(14:14):
sometimes.
And then I have to check myselfright, because someone even
asked in my last staff meetingsomewhere, asked me this
question hey, when somebody sortof sends a mail where you know
something's wrong, what do youdo?
And I thought about it for awhile and I said you know, the
first thing that comes to mind,of course I want to send back a
flame mail too, like in the nextperson.
(14:35):
But then at good times I checkmyself and say, god you know,
all that will do is cause thatperson to be more stressed.
But I got to really look at thesystemic issues here and then
help them recognize to fix it.
So the more introspective weare in creating these safe zones
and psychological safety as acultural thing, as opposed to
(14:56):
any one individual beingvulnerable from time to time, I
think is probably the mostimportant thing that everyday
practice of figuring out what isthe lived experience of the
people in your team.
So when you think about when inthe model coach care, that last
element of care, it's that extralevel of thought that you put
(15:18):
into.
Who are all the people on myteam and, if anything, the
pandemic has really grounded uson.
Look, we all went collectivelythrough this one big tail event.
The reality is, all of us havedifferent histories, different
backgrounds, different tailevents impacting us and so being
(15:38):
able to deeply have empathy forthat and then making sure that
their voice is heard in ameeting.
That flexibility we talk aboutis being exercised to help
people do their very best atwork while they can take care of
everything that's needed intheir life.
That is what I think is the bigthing, that I think we're all I
(16:02):
would say we're much morecapable today just because of
what the trauma of the pandemichas taught us that Now the
question is how do we exerciseit?
Even when quote unquote, thingsget back to normal, because the
reality is all of us, as yousaid, come from different places
, we have different historiesand our everyday experiences are
(16:24):
different.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
One of the things that I love most getting to sit
down with leaders that I look upto is not just hearing them
talk about how they think, butactually observing them in
action and getting them to seethem do what they do best.
And speaking with your team andalso, having seen you a few
times over the years as we'veinteracted, I know one of the
things that you excel at is justmotivating people to do things
(16:45):
they think are impossible, and Iwondered if we could do a quick
role play to get a taste of howyou do that.
So the scene is we've got abunch of faculty at Wharton who
like to do their own independentwork.
They're very much kind ofliving in their own silos.
They don't collaborate as muchas we might like.
We don't even necessarily havea school mission that they rally
around, and I kind of like myindependence.
(17:08):
That's why I chose this field,and tenure is something that
gives me lots of freedom.
Can you motivate me tocollaborate more and to show up
at the office occasionally?
And full disclosure.
I don't want to do it.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
No, it's a great look , first of all, I think it all
the motivation has to come fromwhat it is that you as a
researcher are trying to do andhow teaming can help you do that
better.
Right, this notion of what youdo or what your team does versus
the leverage you get fromteaming is what needs to, you
know, really intellectually andemotionally sort of make sense
(17:44):
to you.
So one of the things, even atMicrosoft, quite frankly, is
we're trying to emphasize, hey,great teams are important, but
great teaming is the currency.
And in fact one of the phrasesI use, getting to yes on unmet,
unarticulated needs of customersis what requires great teaming.
(18:06):
So you know, in your context itwill be like, hey, that
research paper, that researchoutput will be better and you
will do.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
you know you, you'll have more fame and fortune if
you team better with yourcolleagues, and if I'm not
motivated by fame or fortune butreally just enjoying my freedom
and my intellectual exploration.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Even, even intellectual exploration.
Think about, like, what is thesource of intellectual
exploration, even intellectualexploration.
Think about, like, what is thesource of intellectual
exploration?
It's sort of your own abilityto learn from others, and so
therefore, your colleagues Imean think about, like I always
think about the daily routine,the number of people I meet and
how I was able to go explore newthings because of the people
(18:49):
and what I learned from them.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And that I mean stepping out of this for a
second.
That is what strikes me so muchwhen I think about what it
means to be a learn-it-all or alifelong learner.
Is you genuinely believe thatyou can learn something from
every single person you interactwith A hundred?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
percent.
I mean like.
To me, that is the like.
In fact, you know, there's athing that I look at as my
learning system, if there is one.
I picked it up from my dad.
He had this diary.
He would write every day wherehe would sort of put tasks done.
People met, ideas generated toact on, and I love that, which
is, and the source of basicallythe ideas generated to act on
(19:25):
are people and also the work youdid, and so that to me, is a
continuous system so the workyou did, and so that to me is a
continuous system.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
That is such a simple way to take the to-do list that
everybody gets stuck on and say, wait a minute, I should also
have a to meet and to learn list.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Absolutely and in fact turn every meeting like.
That, to me, has been one ofthe greatest blessings is, when
I look at any meeting, what didI like?
It's sort of like there'salways signal and noise.
People get caught up on thenoise but the bottom line is
just trigger.
I mean, just focus on filteringfor signal signal and noise.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
That's an interesting concept to think about as he
wraps up.
I've been, if you go back, 10,15 episodes.
I'm talking about reducing thenoise in your organization.
There's so much inefficiency.
Anyway, I'm not going to add alot to what Satya said.
How good was that?
This can you just hear and feeland sense?
(20:19):
The third leader in them, thisis somebody who demands
performance.
I mean he's increased the stockprice of Microsoft a thousand
percent during his decade ofleadership.
He's driven revenue growth anenormous amount.
I mean all the stats that Istarted with unbelievable.
He does not tolerate a lack ofperformance and yet you can just
hear, you can sense hishumility, his ability to or his
(20:42):
understanding of how importanthuman capital is, even as the
CEO, the chairman of atechnology company.
This is one side In one of theupcoming episodes I'm going to
play for you.
The other debate, the foundermode, the, the, the second
leader, those that areadvocating that this is what we
are.
This is this.
This is the punch line.
I'm not saying satchin, adelaor any leader or executive is
(21:05):
perfect out there now that we'veall got flaws but the.
But being able to be driven,demanding results, running an
efficient organization producingan impressive track record
while leading in a way thatmobilizes humans and realizes
that these are humans, notmachines, is enormously valuable
(21:27):
.
I hope you got a lot out ofthat clip from Satya Nadella,
the CEO of Microsoft, talkingwith Adam Grant.
The link to the full interview,which I highly recommend, is in
the show notes, and that'swhat's on my mind, what I want
you thinking about in thisepisode of the Lead in 30
podcast.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Share this episode with a colleague, your team or a
friend.
Tap on the share button andtext the link.
Thanks for listening to theLead in 30 podcast with Russ
Hill.
The CEO of Microsoft reveals why great managers
matter more than cutting-edgetech, how to refound a legacy
company and why humility is theultimate superpower I picked it
up from my dad.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
He had this diary.
He would write every day wherehe would sort of put tasks done.
People met, ideas generated.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
You cannot be serious , strengthen your ability to
lead in less than 30 minutes.
I've been telling you over thelast several months, maybe the
last year or so, about thisraging debate that's going on
out there in the marketplaceabout the most effective way to
lead.
We capture it in Lead in 30 bytalking about the first and
(00:48):
second leader and thenintroducing this concept of the
third leader, these leaderpatterns.
If you think about contrast afew people.
Okay.
So on one end, kind of undersecond leader category and for
those of you who haven't beenthrough Lead in 30, the course
you you can just understand thatwe call this the general.
It's a standard saluteleadership style in uh, in the
(01:10):
all-in podcast, in differentplaces they call it the founder
mode.
That's what the airbnb foundercalled it founder mode to give
this famous speech I'm going totalk more about in upcoming
episodes.
There's a lot of noise out thereabout founder mode and it's
that you should be reallydirective as a leader of the
organization.
You should be very demanding.
You shouldn't apologize for it.
So if you think about, inmodern business and today's
(01:34):
business climate, who are reallythe second leaders that are
advocating that position?
Well, there are a bunch of them.
I'll give you just a couple ofnames.
Certainly in the past, steveJobs leaned into that hardcore.
Jeff Bezos was that way,certainly at Amazon.
And then currently Elon Musk.
I mean Elon Musk saying thatnothing you know.
You look at quotes from him.
(01:54):
Nothing transformational comesout of a leader that only works
40 hours a week.
He advocates a 100 hour a weekwork week.
He talks about being on thegrid all the time.
There, in a podcast I waslistening to just a few months
ago, they're making fun of theStarbucks former CEO saying that
you know you shouldn't reallybother employees after six
(02:15):
o'clock at night.
You know those that are workingthe day shift.
So that's really this, thisargument for all in and for
founder mode, whatever you wantto call it like get results and
do it, and if you don't want tobe part of that team and it's
demanding, then that's on you,right.
And then you have contrast thatwith this other approach, which
we call the third leader, whichis more participatory
(02:38):
leadership where, yeah,absolutely You're driven, the
results matter a ton, and whereyou have to to.
You want to grow and you wantto transform, but you do it in a
way that reflects or oracknowledges, respects the fact
that you're leading humans, andso, on that side, one of the
most powerful voices is the ceoof microsoft, sacha nadela.
(03:00):
Right, just look at a few.
Well, I'm going to get into someof the stats in a minute and
then I'm going to play a cliplike an extended clip of an
interview that Satya did that, Ithink, is just fascinating
where he talks about severalaspects of leadership that
really they're foundational andcore to what we teach and lead
(03:20):
in 30 around being the thirdleader.
How you lead matters.
It matters so much.
But let me get into some of theresults that, uh, we'll just
that you got to know that mostof you aren't aware of.
Most of us haven't been payingattention because microsoft
doesn't get in the headlinesmuch.
I mean, it's all these othertech companies and yet what
sacha and his team have beendoing over the last decades
(03:41):
unbelievable anyway.
Welcome into the lead in 30podcast.
In less than 30 minutes, wegive you an idea, a framework,
an interview In this case thatwe're going to play for you, a
best practices story, somethingfor you to consider in your
ongoing effort to improvestrength and enhance, upgrade
your ability to lead otherpeople.
The market is not static leadother people.
(04:07):
The market is not static, it'snot stagnant, it's not standing
still.
You have to be adjusting,improving, upgrading the way you
lead people, otherwise you'regoing to be left behind in the
current market, which is movingat breakneck speed.
If you want to find out moreabout our firm, the work we do
with the executive teams on theconsulting side of our company,
or if you want to find out moreabout our off the shelf training
for mid-level managers, we'vegot four main courses around the
(04:30):
areas that for 20 years, we'vejust seen organization after
organization.
It doesn't matter whether it'sa restaurant chain or an
automobile manufacturer or ahealthcare company or whatever
it is.
It doesn't matter the industry.
These are the four areas thatmid-level managers have to be
trained in in order to scale.
You can find out all about thaton our firm's website.
(04:51):
Lone rock leadership is the nameof the company lone rockio.
That website's expanding everyweek.
We're super proud of what'sthere and what's on the way
videos, articles for you to read, things to pds brochures.
You can order all that kind ofstuff or you could just purchase
the courses.
Okay, and, by the way, I'm RussHilt, this is your first
podcast, welcome in.
(05:12):
I make my living coaching,consulting senior executive
teams and I'm just one of theco-founders, one member of the
team at Lone Rock.
Leadership and the people I getto work alongside are
unbelievable.
A lot of the ideas, a lot ofthe things that I get to talk
about, I'm the mouthpiece for onthis, on these episodes that
come from the geniuses, the justincredible, seasoned, wise
(05:34):
people that I that I get to workwith.
Okay, satya at Microsoft.
When he took over Microsoft,300 billion in market
capitalization, 300 billion andnow 3 trillion, 10x the.
The year he took over, revenuewas 86 billion.
Last couple of years, over 200billion.
(05:56):
He's grown at 86 to over 200billion.
The um the share price when hetook over, when Satya took over
Microsoft, the share was $37 ashare on the stock market, $425
in this month.
That's over 1,000% growth.
If you bought a share ofMicrosoft when Satya took over
(06:21):
and you've held on to it'vegained a thousand percent like.
That's unbelievable.
And he doesn't make a lot ofheadlines and yet the way he
leads is in stark contrast to alot of the people that grab the
headlines of the businesspodcasts that you listen to, of
the, the mainstream media, thebroadcast media, they love to
(06:44):
pay attention to thesecontroversial characters.
And yet here's sacha justleading like a third leader.
What we teach about clarity,alignment, movement you're going
to hear those totally thinkabout those three core areas.
We teach it in our course ofclarity.
A leader who scales knows howto create clarity.
They know how to buildalignment.
They know how to generatemovement.
I'm going to play this clip.
(07:05):
This is um.
This is an interview that umthat sacha did with adam grant.
I love adam grant.
He's written some amazing books.
A few of them are duds, butnobody bats a thousand.
And uh, and adam is from thewharton school of business where
I went and did an executivecourse, uh, which was super cool
to be able to go out there andhave a little bit of an
(07:27):
experience there.
I've got a lot of respect forAdam.
He generates a ton of content.
I appreciate that.
Again, none of us agree witheverything everyone says, or
lots of things that Adamadvocates in the world of
leadership that I just franklydon't agree with.
I think they're a waste of time.
I think that they're not backedup by real world application.
They're more driven by kind ofhis worldview and not so much.
(07:49):
There's not so much of abusiness case or his political
views.
So, but you know he'd say thesame thing of anybody else.
So, but, but, but he puts out aton of great content and I
appreciate the contribution he'strying to make out there.
So Adam Grant at the WhartonSchool interviewing Satya
Nadella, and they start off bytalking about this transition
from the pandemic to thepost-pandemic world.
This interview is a couple ofyears old.
(08:10):
I'm going to put a link in theshow notes I'll have our team do
that so you can click to thefull interview if you want to
watch it.
It's about 30 minutes long.
I'm only going to play like 10minutes of it here.
And Sat as talking about thistransformation of back to work
and the value that he's seen.
Listen to him, talk about this.
This is a guy leading a techcompany, right, his company
(08:33):
sells technology solutions toenterprises.
That's where they make most oftheir money getting you to buy
teams, getting you to buyOneNote, getting you to buy Word
and PowerPoint.
They sell technology solutions.
And yet he says, more valuablethan tech solutions in your
organization is the, is thequality of training, is the
(08:57):
quality of training?
Listen to this the quality oftraining and development you
give to managers.
So he'll start talking aboutthat and then he'll get into
some other concepts.
I'll come back at the end andshare a few thoughts.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Here's Satya Nadella with Adam Grant and so,
therefore, managerial capabilityquite honestly, I think tech
companies in general have hadthis thing about hey, it's all
about technology and managementis not the critical thing,
except everybody's realizing andwaking up and saying, look,
leadership and management andtechnological excellence both go
(09:28):
together and we actually haveto put our money where our mouth
is and focus on building thatmanagerial capability.
And so we have this frameworkAdam called model coach care,
which is sort of the thing thatwe say every manager needs to
sort of exhibit in terms of realskills, and I'm glad we got
that started a few years beforethe pandemic and it's really
(09:50):
helped us a lot during thepandemic.
But I think that it's nowbecome really clear to me that
this is what the company'ssuccess depends on great
everyday management, becauseotherwise, you know, it's very,
very hard to tackle some ofthese things that we're talking
about.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
That approach of model coach care, I think has
been central to one of the majorculture changes that you've
spearheaded.
Of the major culture changesthat you've spearheaded, there
was a time and I'm not going tolocate it, but you can when
Microsoft was externally knownfor a lot of internal
competition.
Forced rankings that pittedpeople against each other were
pretty popular and you came inand challenged that dynamic and
said look, we want tocollaborate, we want to be one
Microsoft.
(10:29):
Can you help us understand howyou made that change real?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, I mean there were two things that I tried to
focus on.
Quite frankly, the way I cameat it, Adam was starting even
with the very basics of beingessentially the first
non-founder CEO.
I felt the real need to in somesense re-found the company,
borrowing the phrase that ReidHoffman uses, which I like a lot
(10:55):
, because from time to timecompanies need that moment where
you need to reground yourself,you know, and starting with both
the sense of purpose andmission, like why do we exist?
And if we sort of disappeared,would anybody miss us To remind?
Because I think every one of uswho work in any company need
that anchoring in order to thengo on to make all the decisions
(11:16):
and work we do.
So I focused a lot on thatpurpose and mission.
And then the other one was toreally put forth the culture
that we aspire to, and that'swhere I borrowed from Carol
Dweck's work on growth mindset,which has been a godsend to us,
because it's really helped us gofrom being these know-it-alls
to learn-it-alls, at least as anaspirational state, and the
(11:40):
good news is the day you say wehave the growth mindset is when
you become a know-it-all, and so, therefore, it has helped us
continuously think of this as,hey, a process of constant
renewal, and that mission andculture has given us perhaps
Adam, more of that permission tolook inwards, look to what
(12:02):
systems, processes, behaviorsmake us successful in the first
place, and reinforce them.
And then, the same thing whatsystems, processes and behaviors
make us sort of not successful,and then get rid of them, or at
least try to not have themreappear as often as they do,
because there are regressionsalways.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
One of the things that I would love to hear your
reaction to is I've found insome of my latest research that
it's not enough just to admitthat you have things to learn as
a leader.
It's helpful to ask forfeedback and open the door, but
what's much more powerful is toactually criticize yourself out
loud, because that way, you'renot just claiming that you're
receptive, you are proving thatyou can take it, and one of the
(12:46):
things I've admired about yourleadership for a long time is
the humility and vulnerabilitythat you show, that you're not
afraid to admit when you don'thave all the answers or when you
made a mistake or got somethingwrong.
Can you talk to us a little bitabout how you built the
confidence to share yourmistakes and what that looks
like doing it effectively?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
That's a great question, you know.
I think a little bit of thatcomes from, I think, feeling
very secure, right, I mean oneof the things that I was talking
to one of my members of oursenior leadership team, and you
know he's really doing afantastic job of what he calls
the safe space, right, I meanthe psychological safety that
(13:27):
one creates around you,especially the most senior you
are, becomes, I think, superimportant, becomes, I think,
super important, and to yourpoint, one technique of that is
to share your own fallibility,because that gives confidence to
others.
And so I think that that's, youknow.
Again, I go at it two ways.
One is that personal trait ofsort of having feeling secure
(13:52):
leads you to be more vulnerable.
But then the real issue is,systemically, how do you help
people feel secure?
And so that is where thecultural element of having
psychological safety as being afirst-class thing that's talked
about, where people are notjumping down people's throats
the first time they admit amistake which, by the way, I do
(14:14):
sometimes.
And then I have to check myselfright, because someone even
asked in my last staff meetingsomewhere, asked me this
question hey, when somebody sortof sends a mail where you know
something's wrong, what do youdo?
And I thought about it for awhile and I said you know, the
first thing that comes to mind,of course I want to send back a
flame mail too, like in the nextperson.
(14:35):
But then at good times I checkmyself and say, god you know,
all that will do is cause thatperson to be more stressed.
But I got to really look at thesystemic issues here and then
help them recognize to fix it.
So the more introspective weare in creating these safe zones
and psychological safety as acultural thing, as opposed to
(14:56):
any one individual beingvulnerable from time to time, I
think is probably the mostimportant thing that everyday
practice of figuring out what isthe lived experience of the
people in your team.
So when you think about when inthe model coach care, that last
element of care, it's that extralevel of thought that you put
(15:18):
into.
Who are all the people on myteam and, if anything, the
pandemic has really grounded uson.
Look, we all went collectivelythrough this one big tail event.
The reality is, all of us havedifferent histories, different
backgrounds, different tailevents impacting us and so being
(15:38):
able to deeply have empathy forthat and then making sure that
their voice is heard in ameeting.
That flexibility we talk aboutis being exercised to help
people do their very best atwork while they can take care of
everything that's needed intheir life.
That is what I think is the bigthing, that I think we're all I
(16:02):
would say we're much morecapable today just because of
what the trauma of the pandemichas taught us that Now the
question is how do we exerciseit?
Even when quote unquote, thingsget back to normal, because the
reality is all of us, as yousaid, come from different places
, we have different historiesand our everyday experiences are
(16:24):
different.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
One of the things that I love most getting to sit
down with leaders that I look upto is not just hearing them
talk about how they think, butactually observing them in
action and getting them to seethem do what they do best.
And speaking with your team andalso, having seen you a few
times over the years as we'veinteracted, I know one of the
things that you excel at is justmotivating people to do things
(16:45):
they think are impossible, and Iwondered if we could do a quick
role play to get a taste of howyou do that.
So the scene is we've got abunch of faculty at Wharton who
like to do their own independentwork.
They're very much kind ofliving in their own silos.
They don't collaborate as muchas we might like.
We don't even necessarily havea school mission that they rally
around, and I kind of like myindependence.
(17:08):
That's why I chose this field,and tenure is something that
gives me lots of freedom.
Can you motivate me tocollaborate more and to show up
at the office occasionally?
And full disclosure.
I don't want to do it.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
No, it's a great look , first of all, I think it all
the motivation has to come fromwhat it is that you as a
researcher are trying to do andhow teaming can help you do that
better.
Right, this notion of what youdo or what your team does versus
the leverage you get fromteaming is what needs to, you
know, really intellectually andemotionally sort of make sense
(17:44):
to you.
So one of the things, even atMicrosoft, quite frankly, is
we're trying to emphasize, hey,great teams are important, but
great teaming is the currency.
And in fact one of the phrasesI use, getting to yes on unmet,
unarticulated needs of customersis what requires great teaming.
(18:06):
So you know, in your context itwill be like, hey, that
research paper, that researchoutput will be better and you
will do.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
you know you, you'll have more fame and fortune if
you team better with yourcolleagues, and if I'm not
motivated by fame or fortune butreally just enjoying my freedom
and my intellectual exploration.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Even, even intellectual exploration.
Think about, like, what is thesource of intellectual
exploration, even intellectualexploration.
Think about, like, what is thesource of intellectual
exploration?
It's sort of your own abilityto learn from others, and so
therefore, your colleagues Imean think about, like I always
think about the daily routine,the number of people I meet and
how I was able to go explore newthings because of the people
(18:49):
and what I learned from them.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And that I mean stepping out of this for a
second.
That is what strikes me so muchwhen I think about what it
means to be a learn-it-all or alifelong learner.
Is you genuinely believe thatyou can learn something from
every single person you interactwith A hundred?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
percent.
I mean like.
To me, that is the like.
In fact, you know, there's athing that I look at as my
learning system, if there is one.
I picked it up from my dad.
He had this diary.
He would write every day wherehe would sort of put tasks done.
People met, ideas generated toact on, and I love that, which
is, and the source of basicallythe ideas generated to act on
(19:25):
are people and also the work youdid, and so that to me, is a
continuous system so the workyou did, and so that to me is a
continuous system.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
That is such a simple way to take the to-do list that
everybody gets stuck on and say, wait a minute, I should also
have a to meet and to learn list.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Absolutely and in fact turn every meeting like.
That, to me, has been one ofthe greatest blessings is, when
I look at any meeting, what didI like?
It's sort of like there'salways signal and noise.
People get caught up on thenoise but the bottom line is
just trigger.
I mean, just focus on filteringfor signal signal and noise.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
That's an interesting concept to think about as he
wraps up.
I've been, if you go back, 10,15 episodes.
I'm talking about reducing thenoise in your organization.
There's so much inefficiency.
Anyway, I'm not going to add alot to what Satya said.
How good was that?
This can you just hear and feeland sense?
(20:19):
The third leader in them, thisis somebody who demands
performance.
I mean he's increased the stockprice of Microsoft a thousand
percent during his decade ofleadership.
He's driven revenue growth anenormous amount.
I mean all the stats that Istarted with unbelievable.
He does not tolerate a lack ofperformance and yet you can just
hear, you can sense hishumility, his ability to or his
(20:42):
understanding of how importanthuman capital is, even as the
CEO, the chairman of atechnology company.
This is one side In one of theupcoming episodes I'm going to
play for you.
The other debate, the foundermode, the, the, the second
leader, those that areadvocating that this is what we
are.
This is this.
This is the punch line.
I'm not saying satchin, adelaor any leader or executive is
(21:05):
perfect out there now that we'veall got flaws but the.
But being able to be driven,demanding results, running an
efficient organization producingan impressive track record
while leading in a way thatmobilizes humans and realizes
that these are humans, notmachines, is enormously valuable
(21:27):
.
I hope you got a lot out ofthat clip from Satya Nadella,
the CEO of Microsoft, talkingwith Adam Grant.
The link to the full interview,which I highly recommend, is in
the show notes, and that'swhat's on my mind, what I want
you thinking about in thisepisode of the Lead in 30
podcast.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Share this episode with a colleague, your team or a
friend.
Tap on the share button andtext the link.
Thanks for listening to theLead in 30 podcast with Russ
Hill.
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