Subject: Starting to Evolve Our Organization and Culture
Body: Last week in my email to you I synthesized our strategic direction ...
Subject: Starting to Evolve Our Organization and Culture
Body: Last week in my email to you I synthesized our strategic direction ...
I'd be curious to see other people's management style from their armchair.
Dear Employees,
For our business to continue running, we must reduce the number of staff. This is an unfortunate but also inevitable reality.
[insert details of layoff here]
[insert honest platitudes]
Senior management wishes all of you the best of luck, and has every confidence that you will be even more successful at your next job.
Last year, Microsoft made over $20 billion profit on almost $80 billion in revenue. The truth is that Microsoft has accumulated many useless employees over the years, and they could be even more profitable by laying off those people.
Pruning all the carefully hidden useless employees is a massive effort, getting rid of a department that is longer relevant is a minor effort. Expecting them to undertake the massive effort for the appearance of fairness is unrealistic.
it seems fine to me?
c.f.
Subject: good news and bad news
Hey team, got some good news and bad news. The bad news is not everyone can be part of some of the current transitions, you're more than welcome to re-apply to new positions that will be evolving in the future, for those of you who are still relevant. The good news is that for those of you who are staying - Microsoft is now a mobile-first company! We're making the productivity equivalent of Angry Birds. Also, we're keeping xbox, you guys are cool.
Peace yo.
This is a notification that it's happening, that you're not going to be affected, and that they're doing it because they think it will help the company grow and adapt.
I used to believe that if one were selective, he could find discerning groups of people where political shenanigans were of minimal effect. I've since learned that no matter what, politics is a matter of survival in any group of 5+ people, especially in cultural circumstances that emphasize individual independence and freedom.
We can't fault a corporate CEO for donning highly-sanitized corporate political speech. Like it or not, executives would be dead meat without it.
Heck, Cheney all but quoted Reagan's "I don't recall"-defense as a 20th anniversary tribute and that had been lampooned specifically.
Lies don't have to "sound political" to be untrue.
http://www.mondaynote.com/2014/07/13/microsofts-new-ceo-need...
http://www.bhorowitz.com/the_right_way_to_lay_people_off
Though it's advice aimed at much much smaller companies than Microsoft it still resonates. Also I bet HN readers are much more likely to have to one day lay off 18 people than 18,000.
For starters, I would not use the word "synthesized" in my email.
Last week in my email to you I outlined our direction as a productivity and platform company. On July 22, during our public earnings call, I’ll share further specifics on where we are focusing our innovation investments. The first step to building the right organization is to make changes to our workforce. With this in mind, we will begin to reduce the size of our overall workforce by up to 18,000 jobs in the next year. Of that total, Nokia Devices and Services is expected to account for about 12,500 jobs, comprising both professional and factory workers. We are moving now to start reducing the first 13,000 positions, and the vast majority of employees whose jobs will be eliminated will be notified over the next six months.
It’s important to note that while we are eliminating roles in some areas, we are adding roles in certain other strategic areas. My promise to you is that we will go through this process in the most thoughtful and transparent way possible. We will offer severance to all employees impacted by these changes, as well as job transition help in many locations, and everyone can expect to be treated with the respect they deserve for their contributions to this company.
Later today your Senior Leadership Team member will share more on what to expect in your organization. Our workforce reductions are mainly driven by two outcomes: work simplification as well as Nokia Devices and Services integration.
First, we will simplify the way we work to drive greater accountability and move faster. We plan to have fewer layers of management, both top down and sideways, to accelerate the flow of information and decision making. This includes flattening organizations and increasing the span of control of people managers. Our business processes and support models will be more lean and efficient with greater trust between teams. These changes will affect both the Microsoft workforce and our vendor staff.
Second, we are working to integrate the Nokia Devices and Services teams into Microsoft, completing the acquisition announced last September. To win in the higher price tiers with our first-party phone portfolio, we will focus on design and technical innovation. In addition, we plan to shift select Nokia X product designs to become Lumia products running Windows. This builds on our success in the affordable smartphone space and aligns with our focus on Windows Universal Apps.
Making these decisions to change are difficult, but necessary. I want to invite you to my monthly Q&A event tomorrow. I hope you can join, and I hope you will ask any question that’s on your mind.
I do like the line about "the respect they deserve" without qualifier. It adds a bit of humanity to the whole thing.
But not enough overall IMO. It really leaves me with the impression that this is just typical corporate speak trying to put the stock price ahead of the mentions of "design and technical innovation".
With an acquisition of this size there are going to be redundant people, and as Nokia was headed towards going out of business, everyone would have lost their job instead of just half.
I think it's pretty tone deaf in a letter to employees. But tomato/tomato I guess.
I didn't say anything about keeping redundant positions, just that he wants to raise the bar for results, and I feel like this release only hurts that effort.
I'm not aware of any great turnarounds that began with "look, we're here for the share-holders". (I'm sure for good or ill they're out there, but they haven't come to my attention for whatever reason).
It's just about the exact opposite of other famous turnarounds based on the "it's the product stupid".
I don't know... I just feel like there's a lost opportunity here. Morale is going to suffer regardless. That doesn't mean you have to make it worse by being tone-deaf.
It can be a disgusting read, but everybody does that in a situation like this -- with a reason.
This guy is trying too hard to sound smart. Everything that's written by him reads like a try-hard freshman English major.
I know an MBA right now who is pursuing a business wherein he offers wifi hotspots to small businesses. His literature claims that renting one of his hotspots will make the business "PCI compliant". I've personally advised him on multiple occasions (gently at first, growing more stern over time) that this claim is patently ridiculous and only displays his incompetence to anyone knowledgeable in IT, but he refuses to amend his materials or statements. Just the tip of the iceberg with him.
Granted these are anecdotes, but I think they embody the anti-MBA ethos. Qualified persons strongly dislike MBAs because MBAs often feel their MBA grants them immunity from doing things incorrectly, and that they are instantly authorities on everything without requiring any experience or research.
I swear they have to explicitly teach that in business school, like: "Now, this degree grants you the magic power of never needing advice, information, or training, and you will always be right, and normal people won't understand that because they didn't go to business school... but remember, business school is the only school that matters. No one would have money without us! Just tell the nerds to shove it if they try to tell you anything else." It's far too universal a feeling among MBAs to be coincidental.
YMMV.
Fully agree that YMMV, but generalizations are useful tools as long as we don't take them as absolutes.
Uhh... who said that MBAs didn't "get it"? The original accusation was that MBAs sometimes employed a particularly objectionable type of vapid and duplicitous speech, not that MBAs were lacking in any particular mental department.
I see several people trying to extend an olive branch ("my personal experience coincides with the stereotype BUT I know my experience is limited, please fill in the gaps"). Instead of filling in the gaps, which you are presumably able to do
> I've just worked with people who were both gifted and in possession of an MBA.
, you insult the people asking you for information and you ignore their polite request. WTF, mate?
In any case, MBAs can help start-up focused entrepreneurs. They can be start-up focused entrepreneurs. Your perception that it can't be so is exactly what I'm talking about.
As soon as the majority of MBAs start displaying a moderate amount of domain specific knowledge that makes them look less like complete fools to the petty peasants that work for them, I'm sure the hate will fade.
One of the most obvious indicators of this is people who retreat behind the bulshit bingo, which is why it is so rightfully disparaged. Seriously, 'synthesized'?? That word doesn't mean what he thinks it does, unless he literally made up their strategic direction on the spot, in that email.
CEOs and other leaders need to consider their audience. Anyone who casts a company-wide memo to a technical audience in such terms comes off as hopelessly out-of-touch, and deserving of scorn.
It's much easier to retreat behind MBA speak, especially when you don't have a clear grasp of what you're trying to communicate or are saying things you don't want to be heard saying. "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit".
It CAN be a useful tool to deflect and confuse, but sadly I think 99% of the time it's not used intentionally. It's simply much, much harder to communicate complex ideas in a simple and clear way - it takes a lot more effort and deeper understanding, and many people are simply incapable.
Its a way of softening the blow for the people being laid off. I mean, sure, you are losing your job, on the other hand, do you really want to work for someone whose brain works in a way that would let them write "Last week in my email to you I synthesized our strategic direction"?
I could see him being Graded cat 4 "in need of improvement" and put on a PIP in one company for that less than stellar performance.
Even CEOs need to feel like a cog in a machine sometimes...
At the very least he could've added a thankyou for your hard work, or an apology to those that no longer have a job.
Innovation investments? That's a new one! Made me laugh, but not for the right reason!