{"id":2424,"date":"2012-07-10T21:00:32","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T21:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bme2.flywheelsites.com\/blog\/avoiding-microsofts-kafkaesque-management-blunders\/"},"modified":"2020-10-26T17:02:46","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T17:02:46","slug":"avoiding-microsofts-kafkaesque-management-blunders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benchmarkemail.com\/in\/avoiding-microsofts-kafkaesque-management-blunders\/","title":{"rendered":"Avoiding Microsoft\u2019s Kafkaesque Management Blunders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft has long been an enigma to many observers. From the time that a single decision at IBM gave Bill Gates\u2019 company the advantage in establishing its DOS operating system to the launch of Windows 98, Microsoft was the standard against which all technology companies were measured\u2026 but then it ran off the tracks. Most fingers have been pointed towards Steve Ballmer, the animated, mercurial CEO who many believe has single handedly decimated the company ever since a 2000 shouting match with Gates left him with his hand on the wheel.<\/p>\n

Vanity Fair<\/i>\u2019s Kurt Eichenwald has been delving into the bewildering affairs in Redmond and through his interviews, research on corporate records and reviews of emails between executives at the company\u2019s highest levels, he paints a picture of a devastated and demoralized company. Analyzing what Microsoft has done wrong can point to what your company should not<\/i> do.<\/p>\n

Stack Ranking Demolished Microsoft<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the Ballmer era, Microsoft has adopted a management policy known as \u201cstack ranking.\u201d This is a program that mandates each department to determine a fixed percentage of employees as their top, good, average and poor performers and has been widely cited as being responsible for crumbling Microsoft\u2019s once famed innovation ability.<\/p>\n

10% of a Team Doing the Finest Work Would Be Savaged<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cStack ranking\u201d at Microsoft was conducted in a way that approximately 20% of all employees would receive top reviews, 70% mediocre ones and 10% would be savaged. Whether the entire team was doing sterling work or failing miserably, these percentages did not change, so 20% of a team working on a completely pointless waste of time would get top reviews while 10% of a team that would be working on innovations worthy of Nobel Prizes would automatically get horrible reviews. Eichenwald states that every former and current Microsoft employee that he interviewed didn\u2019t approve of this stack ranking system and found it outright destructive for employee morale, driving out a huge number of the company\u2019s best minds.<\/p>\n

Why Would Anyone Want to Make Frequent Social Media Posts?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eichenwald states Ed McCahill, a 16 year Microsoft Marketing Manager couldn\u2019t feel anything but bewilderment about how the Windows CE project threw away their huge lead in mobile. They were years ahead of everyone including Apple, but disturbingly the Microsoft bureaucracy simply dropped the ball. Steve Stone, one of the founders of Microsoft\u2019s technology program is just as sanguine about how the company completely misread the social media<\/a> revolution.<\/p>\n

When one of MSN Messenger\u2019s younger developers observed college students setting frequent status updates on AOL\u2019s AIM, he immediately grasped what Microsoft lacked: People wanted a place to scribble their thoughts. When he highlighted his concept to his managers that MSN lacked a short message option, the older men disregarded him entirely as they could not see why young adults would care about posting short and frequent status updates. Not by coincidence Facebook and Twitter founded empires catering to just this proclivity while Microsoft still kept asking why anyone would ever want to engage in such a silly pastime.<\/p>\n

Microsoft = Sears<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the most resounding quotes Eichenwald managed to obtain was from former Microsoft Senior Marketing Manager Kurt Massey: \u201cI see Microsoft as technology\u2019s answer to Sears. In the 40s, 50s, and 60s, Sears had it nailed. It was top-notch, but now it\u2019s just a barren wasteland. And that\u2019s Microsoft.\u201d<\/p>\n

What can be learned from the immolation of the once insuperable technology deity from the Northwestern rain forests? Besides not handing over the reins to the entire company based on how loudly one can shout in a boardroom, the essential aspects seem to be:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Empower your employees, don\u2019t handicap them with impenetrable layers of bureaucracy<\/li>\n
  2. Shun the top-down management model<\/li>\n
  3. Don\u2019t become so set in your ways that you ignore the trending issues that will transform your industry<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Microsoft has long been an enigma to many observers. From the time that a single decision at IBM gave Bill Gates\u2019 company the advantage in establishing its DOS operating system to the launch of Windows 98, Microsoft was the standard against which all technology companies were measured\u2026 but then it ran off the tracks. Most…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2171],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beyond"],"yoast_head":"\nAvoiding Microsoft\u2019s Kafkaesque Management Blunders - in<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Avoiding Microsoft\u2019s Kafkaesque Management Blunders - in\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Microsoft has long been an enigma to many observers. 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