A Critical Consideration of "Inside Microsoft: Balancing Creativity and Discipline" by Robert J. Herbold
In this revealing article from the Harvard Business Review, Mr. Herbold describes his acculturation to the freewheeling and maverick style of operation at Microsoft and how it compared with Procter & Gamble, where he had spent a good deal of his career, working his way inexorably up the pyramid. He has a certain awe about the way that Microsoft was run, and he approaches the situation with the seeming detachment studying a new tribe. At the same time, he realizes that what he was hired to do might not be feasible.
He tells us that he saw in short order why Bill Gates had brought him in to the company as chief operating officer. Gates thought that the company was in a shambles, and he wanted someone to add some organization. It seems rather telling that the first few words of the article all concern clothes, and how he should dress, and how his appearance was. This tells us a great deal about the man.
I had decided several weeks before--after my second day of interviews--that I should probably shed the standard suit and tie I had worn for 26 years at P&G's buttoned-down Cincinnati's headquarters. Although I would soon discover that my outfit still made me one of the better-dressed employees (my khakis were always pressed.
Throughout the article, the references to sartorial degradation are amusing but at the same time make one wonder where his mind was. He tells us that while certain practices promoted the company's innovative culture and ability to turn on a dime, others created chaos rather than creativity and actually impeded quick course corrections. The operational mess (which exasperated Gates, as a number of colorful anecdotes reveal) resulted from divergent practices and incompatible systems.
Herbold's mission was to bring discipline to the organization without undermining the very characteristics th...