Hit Refresh

But as management guru Peter Drucker once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Our industry does not respect tradition. What it respects is innovation.

Every person, organization, and even society reaches a point at which they owe it to themselves to hit refresh—to reenergize, renew, reframe, and rethink their purpose.

I knew that to lead effectively I needed to get some things square in my own mind—and, ultimately, in the minds of everyone who works at Microsoft.

The next time you are in a meeting, ask the quietest person what they think. Invite everyone into the conversation. If you are on a conference call, ask the people on the phone to share their thoughts first.

Consistency over time is trust.

Innovation was being replaced by bureaucracy. Teamwork was being replaced by internal politics. We were falling behind.

The view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.

I told them that we spend far too much time at work for it not to have deep meaning.

Learning to fly is not pretty but flying is.

Despite all this rapid change in the computing industry, we are still at the beginning of the digital revolution.

The number one thing that you have to do as a leader: to bolster the confidence of the people you lead.

We must respond to opportunities before they become conventional wisdom.

My approach is to lead with a sense of purpose and pride in what we do, not envy or combativeness.

Passion, toil, and training can help you to soar.

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.

A growth mindset enables you to better anticipate and react to uncertainties.

Leadership means making choices and then rallying the team around those choices.

The key to the culture change was individual empowerment.