Think of the Most Innovative High-Tech
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hink of the most innovative high-tech are avid readers – particularly of books such as companies. What comes to mind? Most Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and James Surowiecki’s T people start with Google Inc. and then The Wisdom of Crowds. perhaps Apple Inc. After that, it’s less obvious. Add in the fact that Generation Y learns differently Microsoft Corp. is usually overlooked in these and embraces social networking tools, and the discussions. Conventional wisdom views the software challenge to conventional management becomes Cover story colossus as the innovator of the previous century clear. As one of the Windows Security team says, and now the master of carefully orchestrated “Generation Y wants to work on cool, cutting-edge software development projects such as Windows and projects, and Generation Y wants to be recognized Microsoft Office rather than as a developer of for its work by peers, family and friends.” And if creative and innovative working practices. such projects aren’t provided in the workplace, many Think again. Ross Smith, an 18-year veteran of will choose to find them in online communities and Microsoft and now director of the Windows Security work on them – for free – in their spare time. Test Team, is working to show that innovative As Smith got to know his new team and started to management techniques are alive and well inside understand what made them tick, he saw an the world’s best-known technology company. opportunity to do things differently. “We wondered Smith leads an 85-person test team in the if we could bring that extra effort inside Microsoft’s company’s Windows division. The team works to walls and share our human and corporate resources ensure the quality of Windows security-related to encourage some of that innovation to happen right features. It may not sound sexy, but it is high- here. We wanted to create an environment where the pressure, high-status work within Microsoft. Marc team could have more freedom with the ‘how’ rather McDonald, the very first Microsoft employee, is part than be relentlessly preoccupied with the ‘what’.” of the team. Others have chosen to join the team The challenge, in other words, was how to apply after successful development manager jobs Theory Y to Generation Y. Theory Y says humans are elsewhere. Expectations are high as hundreds of intrinsically motivated to do a good job, and if the millions of people trust – and demand – that right conditions can be created, employees will give features work correctly and Windows is trustworthy. their discretionary time for free. Theory Y behaviour After Windows Vista shipped in 2007, Smith took came naturally to Smith. Two decades at Microsoft over the Windows Security Test Team effort. As part had given him a good intuitive feel for how to get of his preparation, he met individually with everyone the best out of people. And he attracted a loyal on the team – all 85 people. following. “He genuinely cares about people, and in “As I was doing these meetings, I began to realize a very unique way. There’s a lot of humour. He’s the depth of talent in this group. Over a third of the really down to earth, and a lot of fun to work with,” team had a master’s degree or higher, which is very says Lori Ada Kilty, programme manager, one of unusual. And from the annual employee survey, I Smith’s closest colleagues. knew people were feeling underutilized. The nature of our work is unusual – it is intense and Starting points painstaking, but it ebbs and flows, which means In early 2007, Robert Musson, a developer on the sometimes there’s spare capacity in terms of team, stumbled on a paper by John Helliwell and brainpower, and even effort. And of course, if you’ve Haifang Huang at the University of British Columbia got your doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University that examined the relationship among trust, pay and and you’re running some manual tests to verify a job satisfaction. piece of code, it’s logical you would feel Musson reflected: “Trust in management is, by underutilized. So it got me thinking about what we far, the biggest component to consider. Say you get could offer these people in terms of figuring out how a new boss and your trust in management goes up a to apply that talent.” bit at your job (say, up one point on a 10-point The team is filled with people routinely labeled scale). That’s like getting a 36 per cent pay raise, “Generation Y.” This time the broad brushstroke Helliwell and Huang calculate.” label actually applies. As a Millennial on the team The team began to think about how trust worked puts it, “Despite everybody talking about how in the Microsoft environment and noticed a mismatch Microsoft is an old company, there’s still a lot of between the general theories and the situation of young people being hired, and a lot of them are his team. “When it comes to trust, there’s a lot being hired because they want to be there. They are written in terms of innovation, risk taking, sharp and tend to do many things on top of their experimentation and managing failure, but we’re normal duties – a lot of the time this is what you very focused on a set of predictable deliverables. have to do to get noticed.” The testing team There’s an emphasis on predictability, stability and members live online, love competition, devour reliability and that’s at odds with what you read technology in any form and, perhaps surprisingly, about trusting, innovative environments. We → © 2008 The Author | Journal compilation © 2008 London Business School Business Strategy Review Winter 2008 5 → thought that if we could encourage managers to It proved to be a powerful forum. As Smith explains, work to build trust on their teams, then that might “These meetings started with trust and have evolved lead to more satisfaction, more innovation, employee along with the programme. They can range from growth and so on.” people presenting their ideas to brainstorming, but People are more likely to have fun at work if they really, the main goal is to keep the programme alive Cover story trust each other. With that realization, the team and build relationships around the team. The thought it had something tangible it could pursue. structure is really flat – everybody’s ideas get equal billing, and everybody’s comments are valid. We try Improving trust to make sure that there’s no hierarchy in the room. Trust, of course, is a large and abstract issue – but It gives people a forum to share their ideas and to one that lies at the heart of working life and working share the projects they’re working on.” relationships. “It’s like freedom and air,” Smith says. One conversation led to another. Some Web- “You know when you don’t have it, but it’s really hard based tools for sharing information about project to measure it and to know when you do have it.” status, submitting calls for help and promoting The first step, therefore, was to brainstorm to new ideas were introduced. “The hope is that identify the behaviours affecting trust behaviour people will vote with their feet for good ideas,” that people saw in their day-to-day work. As this Smith says. “There’s no community rating system Add in the fact that Generation Y learns differently and embraces social networking tools, and the challenge to conventional management becomes clear. progressed, the team created some games and or voting for each idea. Ideas are like children – experiments with voting to try to prioritize the everyone loves their own. And we wanted the lengthening list and to learn more about what could programme to support that. If you see an idea you be done to increase trust. like, you can just talk to the person who’s listed on At www.defectprevention.org/trust, readers can the site. This gave people another platform for view one of the games the Microsoft team used to promoting their ideas.” By now, the team has had a develop its trust model. Users are asked, “Which couple thousand slices of pizza, devouring topics trust factor is more important to you?” and then such as debugging techniques, improving customer given a series of two-option responses such as feedback, identity theft, how to think creatively “Don’t skirt real issues” and “Don’t bury your head through problems, and new products from other in the sand”. Users can select from as many pairs teams around Microsoft. as they like, then view the compiled results from all who participated. Giving it a name: 42Projects The result was a better-ordered list of trust factors. The spirit of learning, trust and respect for new The trouble with this approach was that it was ways of working was coming alive in the Windows situational – the ordered list might apply to me, Security Test Team, but it needed a name. They but it might not apply to you, or, it might apply to needed a brand to represent the changes that were me on Tuesdays but not on Fridays. More research happening. They settled on 42Projects. For the led to the creation of a playbook for people to uninitiated, the number 42 is the answer to life, the reference and use. Things like “be more transparent” universe and everything in Douglas Adams’ cult or “demonstrate integrity” were highlighted. The classic The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.