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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, I don't get it, what am I missing?
Sugarcoating mass layoffs with "evolve", "culture", "synthesized", "strategic direction"...
This is a company with a net profit margin of 27.74% in Q1 2014.
Layoffs aren't always about profit though. In this case, it is more about streamlining and making MS more agile
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That's plausible, but also plausible is that the drawn-out process causes the better performers to leave while they can. It's easy to say from the outside that the layoffs will hit underperformers and people who are just coasting, but the fact is that layoffs of this scale inevitably involve politics. We're talking about an organization that had so much trouble getting the Office people on the same page as the Mobile…
> That's plausible, but if I were at Microsoft I'd be sending out my resume right now. No -- most people who work at a big company know _exactly_ whether they're in danger or not. We're speaking about 5% of the original (pre-Nokia acquisition) workforce. You must know whether you're in the bottom 5%, or if your product is in the least critical 5%. Of course there are surprises and some good/productive guys will be la…
Subject: Starting to Evolve Our Organization and Culture Body: Last week in my email to you I synthesized our strategic direction ... Christ.
When you fire that many people, then this is the tone you use, unfortunately. It's not specific (so people won't be able to argue that they're really needed, etc.), it does not have any negative statements (no blame on people who're let go), it not personal (Nadella cannot and should not express any strong positive or negative personal feelings about the event). It can be a disgusting read, but everybody does that in…
This guy is trying too hard to sound smart. Everything that's written by him reads like a try-hard freshman English major.
Too many words. He needs to drop the self absorbed thought leader babble and communicate in a straight forward manner.
Indeed. None of the words in his company wide email meant 18000 job cuts to me. Just a neutral line of babble in that email. Terrible leadership to start with
> The first step to building the right organization for our ambitions is to realign 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, our work toward synergies and strategic alignment on 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.
That says '18000 job cuts' pretty clearly to me.
The rest is general high-level direction because 1. that's probably the only thing they have right now, it takes time to work out detailed restructuring, 2. that's the level at which high level managers operate - fuzzy strategic directives, up to lower-level management to implement them in specific ways.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you fire that many people, then this is the tone you use, unfortunately. It's not specific (so people won't be able to argue that they're really needed, etc.), it does not have any negative statements (no blame on people who're let go), it not personal (Nadella cannot and should not express any strong positive or negative personal feelings about the event). It can be a disgusting read, but everybody does that in…
Everyone talks like 'Last week in my email to you I synthesized our strategic direction'? This guy is trying too hard to sound smart. Everything that's written by him reads like a try-hard freshman English major.
Looking forward to the wave of cool startups this will create!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's plausible, but also plausible is that the drawn-out process causes the better performers to leave while they can. It's easy to say from the outside that the layoffs will hit underperformers and people who are just coasting, but the fact is that layoffs of this scale inevitably involve politics. We're talking about an organization that had so much trouble getting the Office people on the same page as the Mobile…
> That's plausible, but if I were at Microsoft I'd be sending out my resume right now. No -- most people who work at a big company know _exactly_ whether they're in danger or not. We're speaking about 5% of the original (pre-Nokia acquisition) workforce. You must know whether you're in the bottom 5%, or if your product is in the least critical 5%. Of course there are surprises and some good/productive guys will be la…
I'm not very impressed with the choice of Nadella so far, he seems too deep into MS culture to be able to see clearly. But only time will tell, it's still to early to give a verdict.
Do you care to explain more why you think he can't see clearly? I'm curious about your reasons for the statement. From my limited outside perspective, these layoffs are a good idea since there's bound to be a lot of redundancy and inefficiently in a company of this size