Jeffrey Snover invites us behind the scenes of his promotion to Technical Fellow, when he joined Microsoft’s other Senior Executives. Satya Nadella gave this admonishment, paraphrased by Jeffrey:
Congratulations …. your days of whining are over. In this room, we deliver success, we don’t whine. Look, I’m not confused, I know you walk through fields of shit every day. Your job is to find the rose petals. Don’t come whining that you don’t have the resources you need. We’ve done our homework. We’ve evaluated the portfolio, considered the opportunities and allocated our available resources to those opportunities. That is what you have to work with. Your job is to manufacture success with the resources you’ve been allocated
This philosophy was what once made working at Netflix so great. The feeling of being empowered was incredible, but the drive to behave like a member of the Dream Team is what had the biggest impact on me. If you want a master class in leadership, read No Rules Rules, by Reid Hastings.