Last week, I met my old college friend, Takuya who is the president of Microsoft Japan. We talked for about three hours. Mainly about our families and work. Because I am taking this business class, I decided to ask him the details of his work. Taku has been very willing to explain how he made the work Microsoft's environment and employee function much better than it used to be. The key concept is "growth mind." Employees need to have the desire to learn better skills and knowledge constantly to do quality jobs which will make the company better than ever. It is easy to say but difficult to practice for managers. They must motivate employees to be better. He explained to me how he did partially and it is super hard work. He had to "manage out" some employes when the employee is not behaving right even though he performed his job well. "Good performance and bad behavior is the worst employee because they will ruin the positive company cultures." He often emphasized the importance of company culture to me.
Do I have a company culture? That is a good question. It has to do with the core value I set out in the begining of the class. I too believe the importance of growth mind.
He recommended me one book. Brother Clay Christensen's "Innovator's Dilemma" which I bought yesterday and started reading.