Stuart Scott, CIO, Microsoft Corporation
 As I’ve built my leadership team, the qualities I’ve looked for are passion, values, and the ability to deliver results. It’s the combination of these three that makes a truly effective leader – a person who cares deeply about what they do, who does it with integrity, and who consistently and reliably achieves goals that contribute to the success of the business.
For the past two years, Microsoft IT, has worked closely with our HR team to establish the Microsoft IT Talent Development Program (TDP). The mission of the TDP is to identify and develop leaders in MSIT, and during our annual review sessions we look at the current pool of talent and indentify high-potential leaders, or “HiPos”. These people are selected based on their ability, aspirations, and commitment to the organization and to Microsoft. To develop our HiPos, we provide opportunities for them to work on stretch assignments and attend leadership development training. Recent HiPo college graduates may also participate in a two-year rotation program.
On-going training is very important. At the management level, Microsoft has created many opportunities for the development of people management skills through training, augmented by an ongoing follow up loop.
For general technical training, Microsoft has always been a known leader in supporting deep technical knowledge and certification in best practices. That rigor includes advocacy for innovation and leadership in industry trends. My expectation is that everyone in my organization would feel encouraged to pursue training to advance their skills and knowledge in the appropriate disciplines.
Retaining great talent is always a challenge. At Microsoft and across Microsoft IT, we have a rewards and recognition program that is aimed at retaining talented employees, and is known for highlighting great accomplishments. Our compensation models are also developed to address keeping talented and skilled employees.
Besides, CIOs need to think beyond technology, and look at what is needed to support business growth and success. Often IT leaders focus on technology “tools” rather than considering the strategic needs of the business. Having an MBA has really helped my perspective on this, and given me the ability to align with the business leaders across the company.
Change management is always the biggest challenge in deployments. It’s hard for people to change the behaviors that are associated with “the old way of doing things.” Even here at Microsoft, where we have innovative people who understand the value of advancement, change can be hard. Because of this challenge, we have developed change management principles and practices that have helped integrate new processes and technologies. During the deployment of Windows Vista, the Office 2007 system, and Exchange 2007, MSIT was able address the potential difficulties with proactive implementation processes for the more than 90,000 users across the enterprise.
The trends we see are clearly in the movement toward the “consumerization” of IT. Individual consumers are embracing technology like never before – not just in their work but in their personal lives. They understand the value of technology and how it adds time and quality to their lives.
We are empowering our employees everyday with technology that enhances collaboration – from SharePoint to business intelligence tools to Performance Point. And with “anywhere, anytime” access to networks, data, and communications tools, we see people responding with innovation and productivity increases.
Top 5 management tips for peers:
1. IT ROI matters
2. Evaluate IT spend and align it to strategy
3. Ensure good governance process
4. Fix processes, then enable IT
5. Find and retain great people
----------------- As told to Sonal Desai
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