The Importance of Strong Leadership: Ray Ozzie and Rebuilding Microsoft

The October Issue of Wired Magazine has a good article by Fred Vogelstein on Rebuilding Microsoft. The article describes the challenges Microsoft faces in competing (surviving?) in a mobile, cloud centric world, rather than the traditional desktop environment, which Microsoft dominates to the tune of $1.5 billion a month. The article keys on Ray Ozzie (Lotus, Groove), who is succeeding Bill as chief software architect. Ozzie's vision for Microsoft (and computing) is well known, and best articulated in his services disruption memo.

The article covers a lot of interesting territory: reducing software complexity, increasing time-to-market, feature bloat versus just enough, seamless platform transitions, xBox profitability, and a return to innovation.

However, the two things that struck me most about the article had nothing to do with technology. First, was a comment on Ozzie's leadership style:

"...I suppose this is just classic 'walking the halls', but I feel as though without this kind of direct nonhierarchical contact I would lose touch with my organization, and people throughout would know I was disconnected and would lose respect for me."

So true. You can't be an effective leader (formal or informal) if you aren't in touch with your people. Sure, it takes a lot of time, but its invaluable.

Second, was a change to Microsoft's review process for employees:

"In May, Microsoft also changed its review process for rank-and-file employees, who increasingly felt that the system discouraged risk-taking. It used to be that you were graded on a curve within your group: For every top performer there had to be a subpar one. That worked fine when the company was smaller. But as Microsoft grew, the policy encouraged sloth. Why chance moving to a group of superstar engineers, people reasoned, if it meant you might go from above average status to below average? Now each employee is graded based on individual goals, regardless of how others do. These goals are reset as often as every other month to encourage engineers to ship lots of little software modules and revise them online rather than spend an entire year on a huge release".

Here, classic talent management. The design of employee performance programs must align with corporate goals. If a company wants innovation, it must create an environment to encourage it. If a company wants status quo, there shouldn't be surprises when stars bail.

Note: According to Wired's website, the Rebuilding Microsoft article will be available online on October 6 is now available. While I could've waited until 10/6 for this post, strong leadership and creating environments for success are soapbox items for me. Architecture success requires strong leadership -- from architects, and those tasked with leading architects. On the latter, it helps if you've been the former.

[Post updated on October 11, 2006 at 11:50 for links to Wired article.]