Microsoft continues to post huge profits—$6.7 billion for the past quarter—but is in reality “a clumsy, uncompetitive innovator” whose “products are lampooned.” What happened?
In an op-ed in today’s NYT a former VP seeks to answer that question. One of the reasons: “the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers.”
What happened? Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some of my former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers.”
There are lessens to be learned here for all organizations. Here’s the closing paragraph:
Internal competition is common at great companies. It can be wisely encouraged to force ideas to compete. The problem comes when the competition becomes uncontrolled and destructive. At Microsoft, it has created a dysfunctional corporate culture in which the big established groups are allowed to prey upon emerging teams, belittle their efforts, compete unfairly against them for resources, and over time hector them out of existence
You can read the whole thing here.
