The 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft Management: How to Think and Act Like a Microsoft Manager and Take Your Company to the Top (Hardcover)

by David Thielen (Author), Shirley Thielen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
You may admire him for his chutzpah or detest him for his audacity, but you can't deny that Bill Gates has developed a company capable of dominating any market it resolves to enter. This is not an accident, contends David Thielen--a 20-year veteran of the technology industry who once toiled at Microsoft as a senior software developer on Windows 95 and other projects--and in fact stems directly from the chairman's own unique attitudes on corporate administration.

The 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft Management, subtitled How to Think and Act Like a Microsoft Manager and Take Your Company to the Top, is Thielen's inside look at the way Gates and his lieutenants have successfully harnessed those particular practices that initially put the firm on the map and subsequently used them to build their business into one of the world's largest. "Microsoft's management style is its core strength," writes Thielen. "There are other companies that produce better software, market better, and make fewer mistakes, but no other large company manages its business as well." In chapters with titles like "The Top 5 Percent," "Require Failure," and "Shrimp vs. Weenies," he dissects Redmond's specific methodologies on hiring, quality control, budgeting, performance expectations, and more. --Howard Rothman

Review
Give away free sodas. Hire smart people. Don_t waste time with awards ceremonies. Can Microsoft's recipe for success be this simple?

In 12 Simple Secrets, former Microsoft senior developer, programmer and product manager David Thielen professes a dozen key elements he learned during three years in Redmond that can teach you, as the book's tagline says, 'How to think and act like a Microsoft manager and take your company to the top.'

Not surprisingly, the author's style befits a supermarket checkout diet book. Tip No. 4 – Require Failure Quickly – recounts how Microsoft execs are demoted if they play it too safe and never fail. (Are those responsible for Microsoft Bob bossing around the Microsoft Office team?)

Tip No. 7 – Shrimp vs. Weenies – recommends that everyone below the CEO level should fly coach, forgo personalized stationery and model their offices after the customer service department. Tip No. 2 – The Top 5 Percent – suggests ignoring HR and hiring smart people, regardless of college degrees or personal hygiene.

Now that Microsoft's success is unraveling in federal court, perhaps Thielen should have discussed the company's 13th strategy: Use Market Dominance to Crush Rivals. -- From The Industry Standard

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 181 pages
• Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill (January 26, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071342486
• ISBN-13: 978-0071342483
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,178,431 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Microsoft is a 25,000 Strong Startup, July 16, 1999

By A Customer

This excellent book gives a good view of what makes Microsoft Microsoft. It is a startup that kept acting like one. World Domination requires Performance, everything else falls by the wayside. Microsoft is not about Frat guys/good old boys in managment. It isn't about dreesed for success, politics, presentation, being nice, perks, family values. It is about being the best through using intelligence in cuthroat debate to achieve understanding - then using that understanding to execute, execute, execute. While this perfomance driven environment cuts the b.s., it is a harsh reality. Microsoft has managed to stay lean, even through fat years. If the author is right, companies following this philosophy will destroy or incorporate everything else. The problem is that most companies and people can't handle success. Once they're rich, people get slack, they're not as hungry or aggressive.

Read this book.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Easy to List...Difficult to Implement, January 12, 2000

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

As indicated in The Empire Strikes Back, the Yoda would agree with one of the 12 ("Perform, Perform, Perform"), advising Luke Skywalke:, "Do or do not. There is no try." Paradoxically, Microsoft's emphasis on performance (eg dominance of a market) co-exists with Microsoft's requirement of calculated risks because, as Thielen explains, "Fast failure is acceptable; slow failure is not. But even more unacceptable is no failure. If people never fail, then they are not trying hard enough. They are not pushing the envelope....There is no penalty for understandable failures on the road to success (aside from exceedingly stupid things), and there are substantial rewards for success. So employees at Microsoft will make attempt after attempt for success without worrying about the failures the unsuccessful attempts led to." But not indefinitely....

Throughout The 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft Management, Thielen provides hundreds of specific examples of HOW these so-called "secrets" are consistently applied each and every day throughout the entire company. At least in theory, the Microsoft management strategies (with appropriate modifications) can be effective for any other organization, regardless of size or nature. For example, a family-owned dry cleaner experiments with several different coupon promotions until it finally comes up with one that substantially increases business. Past "failures" are often a necessary cost of eventual success. However, I caution those interested in this book to keep in mind that listing and then explaining 7-75 "secrets" is relatively easy; implementing them effectively and then remaining committed to them is (obviously) much more difficult. My own experience suggests that such a commitment should continue unless and until certain realities require the modification or even the replacement of a strategy. The corporate juggernaut we know as Microsoft is in a process of constant self-transformation. The same should also be true of that hypothetical family-owned dry cleaner.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best in Class, April 5, 1999

By	[e-mail] (Scottsdale, AZ) - See all my reviews

This book seems to be written in an extremely objective fashion, neither gushing or slamming to Microsoft. It reports the observations of someone who has spent time "On the inside" and appears to have no agenda or axe to grind. It is far more informative than anything written by Gates or his ghost writers. It discusses agressive Microsoft business practices that may not be palatable or ethical, but are certainly effective. In the final analysis, it is primarily a book of common sense business wisdom in a short and enjoyable read.