Customer Reviews

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW IN BUSINESS I LEARNED AT MICROSOFT: Insider Strategies to Help You Succeed

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Though not as trendy as Genghis Khan's (or insert historical leader name here) management book, "All I really need to know..." is a pretty quick read with several interesting anecdotes and points to take away.

Three things that I believe would be directly applicable to any company:

1. Have a direction and be able to articulate it. Everyone within the organization should be able to do the "elevator pitch." This basically means know what you're doing, why it's important, who else is doing it, and why you are (or will be) better at it than they are.

2. Continuously improve. As the joke goes, "they usually get it right by version 3.0." However, you can't deny that Microsoft has excelled at is refinement of its products based on input from customers, developers, and even other vendors. The result is the products get better.

3. Keep everyone challenged. A fault many employers have is they tend to corral an employee good at doing "X" into that role "forever." Assuming your employee had no further ambitions, that's fine. However, you probably wouldn't want an unambitious employee in a high-power organization, you'll have to keep them interested. The answer: move them around to develop their skills and keep them engaged.

Sorry folks but this book is junk. Between the "open the door before you go through it" type platitudes and sorely thin anecdotes, there's little substance here. Many of the anecdotes are so out of context it hurts.

I've worked in R&D at Microsoft for a long time, and I just can't find much value in this book. It's like it was sort of made up of things written on sticky notes. I just don't see that the author achieved much at Microsoft, or was more than a ground level marketing person. Big deal.

Note to all budding organizational behavior junkies: this book does contain many clues about the strengths and weaknesses of the company. Read it at a meta-level (ie "why would someone write about this situation in this way?) for lots of interesting take-aways.

Looking for insight into Microsoft? Read Fred Moody's "I sing the body electronic." I know, title sounds dumb but it's a very first hand account of a disastrous product development effort. Even if you don't like the author, there's a real product situation described in enough depth, and with enough direct quotes to know what's going on.

I enjoyed reading this book and learned a great deal about the business environment at Microsoft. I learned a little about how to manage my own career and how to apply Microsoft's philosophy to many situations in the business world. I wanted to send my resume to Microsoft after I finished the book. It gives a positive view of the company and is enjoyable and fun to read.

This book is a must read for anyone who wants simple strategies for succeeding in business. The advice coupled with the anecdotes makes it fun, insightful and engaging. This is truly the stuff that has been key to the success of Microsoft and is just as applicable to other businesses

I suppose it depends on whether you like Microsoft or not as how one might react to this book. I am ambivalent about Microsoft. I like their software, but detest their operating systems. I am a confirmed Apple user. Now for the book, if what Ms. Bick says about Microsoft is true then it would be a truly great place to work. I appreciate learning how Microsoft saved Apple's bacon several times with timely software packages. Having followed the personal computer market for nearly a score of years now and watched Microsoft software go from kludgy to almost unbeatable I believe that Ms. Bick's accounts are congruent with what has accutally taken place. Some of the things that I relearned from the book is that patience is a virtue, that it is all right to make a mistake, and one needs to know more about the competitors product than they themselves know. If you don't believe me ask your self where is WordPerfect and Lotus right now. At one time they dominated their respective markets. Overall, I do not think that you learn anything new from this book, but it does give one an idea on how to run a business and be sucessful especially if you hit the market at the right time.

"All I Really Need to Know..." is a quick read full of cute anecdotes about life at Microsoft (but no insight into the company's success). It's chock full of obvious tips for business managers. This wouldn't be so bad if it were well organized and comprehensive - a primer on how to be a good manager. Instead, it flits from topic to topic and never covers any subject in depth. I don't doubt that many fresh-out-of-college Microsofties could use a management primer, but this is more like shmoozing at the water cooler with your mother. "Be nice to others." "Manage your manager." "Don't run with scissors." Or email, in this case.

I found some of the anecdotes insightful, but with those few that were, they were not detailed enough for me to trust the resulting outcomes of following Bick's advice as legitimate. For the balance of the anecdotes, I found them either dorky or plain common sense. Why did I but this book?!

Excellent quick reading that seems like common sense, but if it was we'd all be doing this right?

Julie Bick hits it right on the nose. Some of the items we've all heard before. However, some were very new to me.

I plan on reading the next one. To give you a flavor of the contents below is an outline of the entire book:

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INTRODUCTION

1.All I really needed to know about running a business I learned at Microsoft

a. SETTING UP TO PLAY

i. Eat your own dog food, but don't believe your own press releases

ii. Examine your mistakes

iii. Let people fail

iv. Sometimes tankers can look like speedboats

v. Let your employees hear your customers

vi. Don't bet against your own teams creativity

vii. Tailor your message to your customer

viii. Every process can be improved

ix. Stay small

x. Act like a leader

b. WINNING THE GAME

i. If you can't win, change the rules

ii. Think three moves ahead

iii. Hit em, where they ain't

iv. You can change your image

v. Win-win deals: what they care about and what your care about

vi. Try it out in the real world

vii. Make big bets

viii. Big events make good deadlines

ix. Give your employees a piece of the pie

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2. All I really needed to know to do my job well I learned at Microsoft

a. BECOMING AN EXPERT

i. The elevator test

ii. Know who your customers are and who just isn't yet

iii. The swot team

iv. Know the business inside and out

v. Know the questions your boss is going to ask

vi. Make decisions as if you owned the company

b. GETTING THE JOB DONE

i. Work smart not long

ii. I don't know is okay, especially coupled with I'll find out

iii. Humor can get you out of sticky times

iv. Real employees do eat lunch

v. Creativity is not a one man job

vi. If you are going to drop the ball, arrange for someone to catch it

vii. Their experience versus your instinct

viii. Work faux pas

c. MANAGING YOUR MANAGER

i. Make your boss look good

ii. Don't waste your boss's time

iii. Bring solutions not problems

iv. Prepare your manager for bad news early

v. See how your boss works and what (s)he needs

vi. Let `em know how they're doing

vii. Give your boss two chances

viii. If you bail out from a bad boss

ix. Don't burn bridges

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3. All I really needed to know to be a good boss I learned at Microsoft

a. LEADING

i. Communicate the strategy

ii. Give your team time

iii. Give your team a hill to climb over

iv. Give credit

v. And take blame

vi. Act the way you want your team to act

vii. Send your team into Bill Gates

viii. Prepare a class of successes not a successor

b. GETTING THROUGH THE ROUGH SPOTS

i. It's almost never as bad as you think it is

ii. Stay flexible your job may change completely in six months

iii. Be the designated jerk for your team

iv. Beneath you? Not Beneath the results

c. A GOOD BOSS GETS THE BEST TEAM

i. Manage your team one person at a time

ii. Mentor your team

iii. Friend versus Boss

iv. No surprises at review time

v. Hire smart and don't rush

vi. Keep the atmosphere fun

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4. All I really needed to know about communication I learned at Microsoft

a. WORDS

i. Your style

ii. What did that question really mean?

iii. Details implies truth

iv. Presenting versus Selling

v. Praise publicly, chastise privately

vi. Give actionable feedback

vii. There's always one more person that needs to know

viii. Why publish?

b. MEETINGS

i. Do you really need to go to the meeting?, and once there must you stay?

ii. Discuss the analysis, don't present the data

iii. Solve controversial issues in advance

iv. Running the meeting

v. Attendance tricks

c. EMAIL

i. Know your email commands

ii. Look closely at the recipient's name you just typed

iii. Email has no social skills

iv. Watch out for email forgery

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5. All I really needed to know about managing my career I learned at Microsoft

a. GETTING THE JOB YOU WANT

i. Know yourself before you choose your job

ii. No one cares more about your career than you

iii. Fix your sights on the corral, not a fence post

iv. Sometimes the frog job can make you a prince

v. Figure out what you'd do in the job before the interview

vi. Bring your ammunition to your job interview

vii. Keep your one page resume up to date

viii. Decide the three messages or attributes you want to convey

ix. If you were a small animal, how small would you be?

b. STAYING ON TRACK

i. A career is a long time

ii. Have your own personal board of directors

iii. The 360-degree review

iv. Think two jobs ahead

v. Keep it in perspective

vi. There is no enemy within

vii. Ten ways to balance work and life

Whenever I manage a group this is one of the 3 books I ask everyone to read. This is a superb guide to how someone should approach work tactically.

Not everything in it is worth following, but most of it is. And it is a very good picture of how to succeed at Microsoft. One of Microsoft's key to success is that every employee more or less follows the guidelines in this book. The trick of this book is Julie wrote down what were the unofficial guides to work there.

Yes sir, I liked it. Does anyone think that it's wrong to give stock options to employees because they might retire early? Well, if they don't want to work, who needs them? Besides, people will work so much harder if they think they can earn an early retirement.