empathy and business

A behemoth corporation embarked on a journey of large-scale transformation from the very roots a few years back following a change in leadership. While the organization started out as a powerfully disruptive force in the industry, it was slowly moving towards a path of stagnation. It was failing to fully leverage its strengths and unlock new potential. For readers who are unfamiliar with this story, the organization in discussion is Microsoft and the leader driving the change was Satya Nadella. He embarked on a quest to rediscover and redefine the soul of Microsoft.

In Satya Nadella’s memoir ‘Hit Refresh’, the central guiding philosophy of the corporate transformation process emphasized upon was empathy. Empathy is a quality that Satya had observed very early on from his compassionate mother and he truly recognized its importance after the birth of his first son who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as this required him to deeply understand his son’s needs in order effectively help him with the complications of the disorder. Empathy is a difficult skill to master which requires you to truly put yourself in the shoes of another person and deeply understand their unmet unarticulated needs. A business is an organization of one set of people (i.e. employees) that work together in order to deliver value to another set of people (i.e. customer) in the best way possible. Satya realized that empathy is a key ingredient in the equation of working with people in order unlock true value in the entire ecosystem which essentially translates into empathizing with customers as a business to understand what they truly need and empathizing with employees as a leader to understand how to best utilize their true potential. He wanted to deeply ingrain empathy into the fabric of Microsoft’s DNA. By truly internalizing empathy, he aimed to cultivate a positive culture that was more collaborative where the ultimate mission was to truly empower every professional on the planet and do anything and everything in order to achieve this. This included the seemingly unconventional step of keeping aside business differences and collaborating with the so-called ‘enemies’ (Linux, Apple) along with making long-term bets on unproven future technologies ( i.e. cloud computing, AI, mixed reality and quantum computing) so as to provide the maximum benefit for consumers. Here, a deep and fundamental purpose was prioritized over short-term business goals. This strategy has truly unlocked long-term business value for Microsoft which can be reflected in their recent technological innovations and financial performance.