6 ms·
Although I think Nadella has made some good changes to company culture, there's a lot more variables that influence a company's performance than the CEO, just a
by yaseer 10y ago
Although I think Nadella has made some good changes to company culture, there's a lot more variables that influence a company's performance than the CEO, just as there's a lot more variables that influence a country's Economic performance than a ruling party.
The piece does that all-too-common simplification of providing a single cause to explain the fluctuation is MSFT's fortunes, a form of cognitive bias I believe. We like simple stories for complex phenomena.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_single_cause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_single_cause
- perseusprime11 10y agoI agree there is no single cause but you are also under estimating the power of a CEO who is responsible for resource allocation and investments. Where he chooses to invest is what becomes of a company. Culture also flows from top down and CEO plays a big role.
- yaseer 10y agoOh I don't dispute that his impact has been significant and positive. I just think there's other factors at play here. For example, Google was extremely slow to market with a competitive cloud strategy, and Apple has been a less competitive player the last 3 years with its own product innovation.
- zdean 10y agoIsn't that kind of like saying that a runner doesn't deserve credit for her win because the other people in the race ran slower than she did?
- yaseer 10y agoChange the runner analogy to manager of a sports team. It's hard to only credit one manager over another when the opposition is a big factor in the equation (along with the strength of the team).
- perseusprime11 10y agoYou can also say this in a different way- Microsoft was faster than Google when it came to cloud strategy.
- splintercell 10y agoOr that there is another single factor which led to the hiring of a CEO like Nandella and not like Ballmer.
- mempko 10y agoIt's almost like a corporation is a mini fiefdom. Like there is a petty dictator at the helm , no matter how benevolent. Weird how capitalist companies are structured that way
- rev_null 10y agoWhat if the lesson is not that Nadella is a great CEO, but that Ballmer was actually terrible?
- exabrial 10y agoAgree, 100%... One more variable I think it's also a combination of timing too. For example: Tim Cook is busy destroying Apple's product lineup forcing a lot of people to reconsider Microsoft.
- jonknee 10y ago> Tim Cook is busy destroying Apple's product lineup forcing a lot of people to reconsider Microsoft. Tim Cook is not helping accelerate Microsoft's cloud and SaaS businesses.
- ghaff 10y agoBut he is helping the rejuvenation of Microsoft's phone and tablet business. Oh wait.
- marricks 10y agoComments like this are a dime a dozen on Reddit and Hacker News but Apple is doing fine. Higher MacBook Pro sales, highest ever iPhone sales. Services doing well... I'd say their biggest problem is MBP pricing is high and a stagnate desktop line. MBP pricing is typical for a redesign, not even high if you include inflation. They'll likely go down with time as they have in the past. And desktops... Well hopefully there's something this year...
- aklemm 10y agoBut they're stuck with two distinct platforms: iOS (touch) and macOS (non-touch) while the hardware the world wants is not so binary. Basically, that we can't touch the screens of the high cost workstations and laptops where we do our creative work, kind of brings down the whole ecosystem.
- ChuckMcM 10y agoI see it quite differently, the leader is the single biggest influencer on the performance of the group. There are many examples in sports where just changing the coach has changed the team from an underperforming team to a leading team. Similarly with companies, a leadership change has often lead to a significant change in performance. To understand that you have to understand that pack behavior tends to mimic the leader, so if the leader does X, then their reports do X, and the people who report to the reports do X. In large organizations you may find pockets where someone in the change decided not to do X and then everyone below them is free of that expectation (for better or worse).
- blacksmythe 10y ago>> mimic the leader, so if the leader does X, then their reports do X... Certainly true - perhaps the best definition of a leader. There are plenty of people who are managers and not leaders, though.