Windows to the world

Entrepreneur, June, 1998 by Julie Bick

Say what you will about Microsoft, but it's the best training ground for anyone interested in business - any business. Experience that might take years to gain elsewhere comes in bursts of just a few weeks at Microsoft. The place is intense, the market changes constantly, and the growth is phenomenal. The things I learned about doing my job - being a manager, running a business and keeping my career on track - can be applied by anyone in any field. So no matter what industry you're in, try these lessons out. See what happens.

EAT YOUR OWN DOG FOOD, BUT DON'T BELIEVE YOUR OWN PRESS RELEASES

My summer job at age 16 was selling Godiva chocolates in the local mall. My manager there told me, "Don't just read the descriptions on the brochure; eat every kind of candy we're selling so you can describe and recommend them to customers." I happily complied. A variation of that principle is used at Microsoft. It's not quite as delightful as taste-testing truffles but serves a similar purpose.

In what is called "Eating your own dog food," Microsoft employees use test versions of all the products on a daily basis long before they come out. Windows 95 marketers used the new operating system every day for months before it was finally ready for market. Teams working on everything from Word, the word processor, to the Encarta CD-ROM encyclopedia do the same thing.

Eating your own dog food is not always pleasant. When Microsoft rolled out its new e-mail system to tens of thousands of employees, there were delays, computer crashes, lost mail and lost productivity. In one glitch, the computer e-mail screen would freeze up for 45 seconds and then go back to normal.

"Eat your own dog food, but don't believe your own press releases" means use the product for yourself, rather than read all about its great features in a press release. See what it's like to be a customer, and you can empathize with them, understand their needs and frustrations. Microsofties use this experience to know the product they're developing, testing or selling inside and out.

EXAMINE YOUR MISTAKES

Microsofties relentlessly study their underdog products, failed marketing programs and missed forecasts. This is not to assign blame or prove why it was someone else's fault. Many of the company's best lessons have come from failures. Microsofties figure as long as they lost all that money, mind share or market share, they may as well learn something from it.

A Microsoft manager returned from a trade show and joyously sent out a piece of e-mail to his team, announcing their product had won nine out of 10 possible awards. Within a day, he received 40 e-mails back asking which award they had not won, and why. Such is the intensity of Microsoft's focus.

After each new software product ships, a "postmortem" is held. From the Latin words meaning "after death," a postmortem analyzes what went wrong and what went well during the life of a project. People are interviewed, reports written, actions and decisions analyzed, and the results are published so any lessons learned can be disseminated throughout the company. The same is done informally with marketing programs as results and measurements are available. And although these reports show the warts of the team, the product and the process, they are shared.

LET PEOPLE FAIL

Personal mistakes are also more likely to be examined than punished. Microsoft vice president Jon DeVaan's words are echoed throughout the company: "If you fire the person who failed, you're throwing away the value of the experience."

When the product manager of Microsoft's spreadsheet software went to Bill Gates in 1984 and told him there was a major bug in the product and it would have to be recalled from retailers, Bill told him, "Well, you came in to work today and lost $250,000. Tomorrow you'll hope to do better." Today, that product manager, Jeff Raikes, is a member of Microsoft Office of the President.

There's a companywide commitment to accepting mistakes as part of the process because so many new areas are being explored. Allowing people to fail with impunity (on the right occasions) paves the way for those people to take risks again in the future. And the rest of the company, watching from the sidelines, will feel emboldened as well. They'll be more free with their ideas. They won't shy away from a project that has a chance of going under. The freedom to fail helps move the company forward.

The saying "Whenever you screw up, you get promoted" has been known to come up laughingly at Microsoft meetings.

LET YOUR EMPLOYEES HEAR YOUR CUSTOMERS

You can imagine or guess what your customers think of this or that product or service. But there's no replacement for asking them directly.

Here are a handful of the ways Microsofties listen to customers:

* Most marketing managers are required to spend time on the Product Support phone lines, listening to technicians trying to solve customers' software problems.

* Letters mailed to Bill Gates concerning a particular product make their way from Bill's office to the employee responsible for that product, and a response to the customer is usually expected.