We were fortunate to host John Thompson, Chairman of Microsoft, for a discussion on people and culture at Lightspeed’s Extreme Entrepreneurs program. John’s prior experience as the CEO of Symantec and an entrepreneur at Virtual Instruments was reflected in a stream of incredibly rich insights for all entrepreneurs; we’ve tried to capture some highlights below.
John described the elements he looks for in people through the lens of six Ps:
- Passion
- Principle
- Persistence
- Patience
- Problem-solver
- People-minded
This is an incredibly simple yet comprehensive framework for us to think about when evaluating people. When we asked John about his views on the importance of Pedigree, which is given a lot of attention in India, his response was “If you were to focus only on pedigree, all you would be left with is an elite team that may not even represent the market you’re selling into. I am always more interested in the individual and the results they’ve delivered in previous jobs, not the school they went to”.
With respect to culture, John described culture as evolving ‘organically’ from the principles and behavior of the founding team. We also discussed the importance and power of culture as a ‘currency’ in the context of attracting great talent – the best people want to go work with the best people in organizations where they feel challenged and empowered. As a leader then, what can you do to help build a healthy culture? Here are a few thoughts:
- Spend more time listening than talking. John recalled his days as a new CEO at Symantec, “It was a new job, I didn’t know anything about the industry, and I spent the first 90 days just meeting everyone and listening.”
- Ensure that values get pushed down the layers, especially to the “mushy middle” (mid-level management). The bigger the company gets, the harder it is to push the message further down. How? There isn’t a substitute to direct interaction. Find different communication channels, and meet them as often as possible.
- Guard against sub-cultures forming within the organization. Find ways to get all working groups to interact (fireside chats, group lunches, town-halls etc.). If sub-groups or cultures form (e.g. in the engineering organization vs. the operations organization), this is often a reflection that the founders/leaders think of these people differently
- Measure progress continuously, simply by asking your employees, customers and partners. They’ll tell you if you’re doing better than a few months/ years ago.
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