What Lumbering Giants Like GE & Microsoft Do to Adapt Their Cultures

How do you drive a culture with hundreds of thousands of employees?

It would be safe to assume that watching global corporations like Microsoft and GE with hundreds of thousands of employees try to adapt or change their cultures would be a little bit like watching ex-heavy weight boxing champion Mike Tyson step into the octagon with Stipe Miocic the 2017 UFC heavy weight champ.

Mike Tyson, although an absolute animal and almost invincible during the eighties (58 fights, 50 wins, 44 by knock out) would be way beyond his prime and he would have to adapt and learn pretty damn fast if he wanted to simply be able to compete in a sport where punching is only one of the forms of aggression. The game has changed: the shape of the ring has changed, the rules have changed, the weapons and means of delivery have changed and the ways of winning have changed. Everything has changed! Yet Jeff Imelt and Satya Nadella have proven that these elephants can dance and have cultures that can be adapted and redesigned for our rapidly changing world.

Adapting to digital, how to turn a supertanker

So how is a lumbering beast like GE, a company founded 126 years ago in 1892 with revenues in 2016 of $123.7 billion, manage to deal with the radical changes of the digital revolution? Jeff Immelt, GE's CEO since 2001, recently communicated one of the company's culture initiatives: "If you are joining the company in your twenties, unlike when I joined, you are going to learn to code. It does not matter whether you are in sales, finance or operations. You may not end up being a programmer, but you will know how to code."

Removing the toxicity and getting Microsoft's mojo back

Satya Nadella was an unexpected choice for the role of CEO at Microsoft. He was in retrospect the right candidate to change the culture and the fortunes of the organisation – in the past almost 4 years he has added over $250 billion in market value to the business.

A focus area for Satya has been on culture change, saying the company needed a culture that "allowed us to constantly refresh and renew". One of the first steps he took when he became CEO of Microsoft in early 2014 was to ask his top executives to read Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. Microsoft's aggressive infighting culture was going to change, and this was the first clear signal that things would be done differently under Satya's watch.

Microsoft historically has been recognised for having a know-it-all culture and Satya has brought what he calls a curiosity driven "learn-it-all" growth mind-set approach to the 124,000 strong business.

Both Jeff and Satya clearly understand the importance of company culture. Not just the lip service, but the well thought through initiatives that will drive a company of hundreds of thousands of employees forward. Neither of these guys wants their company to become the RIM or Kodak of the 21st century and they are using their company culture, the one competitive advantage they as CEOs can control, to make sure they do not.