In 'Hit Refresh', Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shares his personal journey and the transformation of Microsoft by emphasizing the importance of empathy, leadership, and cultural renewal. He advocates for a new social contract and highlights the need for leaders to genuinely connect with individuals and foster a purpose-driven employee and customer experience. The book serves as both a memoir and a guide to internal and organizational transformation, stressing that real change must come from within.

1. Some Impressionistic takes from the book
“Hit Refresh”
“The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul & Imagine a Better
future for Everyone”
By Satya Nadella
by Ramki
ramaddster@gmail.com

2. Prelude
In his debut book Hit Refresh, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
blends autobiography, biography of the company and techno
futurism, but Ethos, Empathy, Empowerment and
Democratization are its keywords.
Nadella sounds passionate about two topics — Leadership and
Transformation, and he makes a strong case for a new social
contract that must guide the values of the evolving, nay
exploding, digital era.
Nadella is protagonist and observer of three transformations that
the book is about. The first is his personal journey, starting as a
privileged kid who played cricket and loved coding, but loses out
in the IIT entrance test. Turnarounds can be dramatic — cricket
had taught him. He goes on to lead Microsoft but in his modest
telling, the route is too mundane, including bouts of green card
angst and H-1B visa queues at the U.S. Consulate.

3. The book is Satya Nadella’s perspective on the
old Microsoft, the in-between changes (and the
big deals like Nokia acquisition) to the new face
of Microsoft (winning the cloud battle).

4. 1. Empathy
2. Purpose
3. Leadership
4. Employee Experience
5. Customer Experience
Five Themes

5.  Empathy grounds and centers .
 Passion is to put empathy at the center of
everything we pursue…
 Always search to understand people’s thoughts,
feelings and ideas
Empathy

6.  Through all this transformation, empathy is the
touchstone of leadership for Nadella — not a
PowerPoint, but a living, loving experience that he
has imbibed, also through caring for a child with
special needs.
 Nadella arrives at the conclusion that “the Choice
of leading through consensus versus flat is a false
one.”
Empathy

7.  Why do I Exist ? Why does our Institution exist ?..
These questions haunt me and they motivated me, to
write Hit Refresh.
 We must discover what would be lost in the world if
Microsoft just disappeared.. What is the company
about ? Why do we exist ?
Purpose

8.  Leadership is about.. Is about bringing out the best in
everyone.
 Build shared context, trust and credibility with your team.
 Listening was the most important thing I accomplished every
day…
 Leadership is an “art form, not a science” for him, and so is
innovation.
Leadership
 Bring clarity to those you work with. Simplify things.
 Generate energy around your teams and the company.
Build teams that are stronger today and tomorrow.
 Find a way to deliver success. Balance short term and long
term. Innovate. Be global minded.

9.  C in CEO stands for Culture. and culture building
becomes the core of his leadership style.
 We will grow as a company if everyone, individually
grows in their roles and in lives.
 The key to culture change was individual
empowerment.
Employee Experience

10. Culture Map

11. “The CEO is the Curator of an Organizational
culture. Everything is possible for a company
when its culture is about listening, learning, and
harnessing individual passions and talents to the
company mission”.
A Cultural Renaissance— : From Know –it-all to
Learn-it-all

12.  Need for obsession about our customers.
 Obsession about over helping people.
 We needed to move people from needing Windows
to choosing Windows to loving Windows.
Customer Experience

13.  Overview- The book covers beautiful and to the
point description of moral things like-
 How a leader must be?
 What is the need of empathy in such profession?
 How it is important to be genuine, to be a man who you
are?
 Excerpt
 WORLDVIEW is an interesting term.
 It is an Art form not a Science. rooted on cognitive
philosophy.
 Simply, it is how a person comprehensively sees the world
across political, social and economic borders.
Consistency is better than perfection.
Take away from the book

14.  Transformation must always come from within
(personally and organizationally).
 Consultants, advisers, counselors, mentors, personal
trainers and therapists can influence direction and bring
clarity to decisioning, but true and lasting transformation
can only begin from within your organization and your own
mind.
 Empathy is a key to responsible leadership.
 The ability to understand, be aware of, be sensitive to,
and experience the thoughts and feelings of others is vital
to empowering others through team-building, process and
product. "Ideas excite me. Empathy grounds and centers
me.", Satya says.
Take away from the book

15.  Inches of misalignment at the senior management level,
translates to gaps of miles at the individual contributor level.
 A profound thought, analogous to a golf swing. The slightest
deviation in the swing can spell disaster down the fairway. So
important for senior management to be mutually supportive and
directionally aligned.
 Success can cause people to unlearn habits that made them
successful in the first place.
 Additionally, the characteristics that brought success early on,
may not sustain your mission and can even contribute to your
downfall. Initially, I didn't like the title of the book, but as Hit
Refresh describes Microsoft's history and challenges, it
becomes clear the title is perfect and applicable at the
individual level also. Hitting refresh doesn't mean you forget
what brought you to where you are, its updating your state with
new information, insight and approaches.
Take away from the book

16.  Its a mistake to write off any relationship as a lost cause.
Tomorrow always begins with a chance to create new
opportunities.
 Guilty. "Coopetition" and intra-organizational efforts are often
required to make a larger impact. Microsoft's history is full of
storied rivalries, but also industry defining partnerships. Think
about this, without a google toolbar on early versions of Internet
Explorer, Google might not be what it is today. Like many themes
in the book, the concept applies to self as well. Relationships lead
to opportunity, don't spoil them.
 Life is path-dependent
 Path dependence is the idea that decisions we are faced with
depend on past knowledge trajectory and decisions made, and are
thus limited by the current competence base. In other words,
history matters for current decision-making situations and has a
strong influence on strategic planning. Embrace your heritage, but
be bold enough to hit refresh.
Take away from the book

17. Happy Reading, Learning & Application
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