Management Of Time Is One Key To Success

Q. Please explain to me the secret of your success. Ghanapathi, Malaysia ghana@pl.jaring.my

A. There is no one secret to success, but certain attitudes and approaches contribute to success.

I’ll describe three that help me.

First, I am acutely conscious of the value of time. For example, when I go to a meeting I keep specific objectives in mind. There isn’t much small talk, especially if I’m with colleagues I know well.

We discuss accounts we lost or where overhead is too high, and then we’re done. Bang! There are always more challenges than there are hours, so why be wasteful?

Second, I watch the competitive landscape carefully. Microsoft is always searching for the new thing that is coming along, whether it is in a research lab or at another company.

We try to understand what other people are doing, even if their apparent mission is so distant that it is not obvious competition.

We focus on what companies do well as opposed to what they do poorly. We don’t dismiss a company as unimportant just because a lot of things about it may be less than perfect. The company may be doing something important; it may not even know that it is important.

Third, I don’t settle for platitudes when discussing management challenges.

There is a kernel of wisdom in certain platitudes, such as “listen to your customers” or “capture all the information.”

What annoys me is the manager whose only contribution is spouting platitudes. I’ve been in meetings where clear-cut issues are on the table, and the total contribution of a participant is to say things like, “Well, we should only do what the customer wants. Let’s keep that in mind.”

This is a poor substitute for thinking. Of course you want to please customers, but how? What are the trade-offs involved?

Q. Do you have really good old friends just to talk to? Jose Antonio Cerda, Chile joselo@lascar.puc.cl

A. Yes, I have lifelong friends whom I enjoy very much. As it happens, one is Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with me.

Conversations do get philosophical now and then, but you probably won’t be surprised to learn that I talk about computers, science and economics, even with intimate friends.

Q. Is there any reason Microsoft took a long time to realize the importance of the Internet? Ravee@aloha.net

A. Microsoft has eagerly anticipated the communications revolution for years. Very early, Paul Allen and I believed that patterns of work, play and learning would change dramatically once digital information could be exchanged across computer networks reaching into every business and most homes.

Microsoft has since invested hundreds of millions of dollars in anticipation of the opportunities that this kind of networking would open. Microsoft also anticipated that the revolution would happen quickly once it got under way.

By 1993, we mobilized several task forces to study it. I gave a great deal of personal thought to the Internet back then and even wrote a memo on it. But we were cautious because the Internet had drawbacks - including capacity and security limitations - compared to what was possible using alternate approaches.

On the other hand, history has shown that almost any limitation can be overcome if enough energy is devoted to it. In short, although we knew lightning would strike someday, setting off a communications revolution even more important than the PC revolution, we didn’t know when or in exactly what form.

As it happened, the lightning struck early. The public got a taste of interactivity on the Internet’s World Wide Web and said, “We’re not waiting for a better solution! Let’s go!”

The lightning strike was awesome. It really energized us. It is not an exaggeration to say that most of Microsoft’s energy today is devoted to taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by the spiraling popularity of the Web.

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