My take on Microsoft's Transformation

"Remember the first time you rode your bicycle and felt the wind blowing across your face?

Or better still.. remember the first time you heard yourself saying "Saal ka target khatam ho gaya hai!!!"

..The butterflies in your stomach, the glitter in your eyes, the smile on your face and sudden rush of something that makes you feel alive and invincible.. Those were my exact feeling when I first got hired in Microsoft in 2012.

After I got hired I spent some time thinking about how my workplace is going to be like.. How will be my teammates, what will be the nature of my work..

As excited as I was I was a tad intimidated. And why not, I was going to be working with the brightest and smartest people in India.

Questions like will I fit in? will I be adequate? will I survive? did cross my minds at times..

People like me join Microsoft as empty books. So much so that we don't even know what genre of book we will be at the end of it. But we are ready to write our stories and convert ourselves into well written Novels. The chapters in our book are made up of the experiences that we have, the moments that we share, the people who touch our lives. My own journey has all kinds of stories in it. Its a mix bag of experiences. But the two things that stand out relative to my peers outside of Microsoft are: how nurturing the environment at the workplace is - today I am not afraid to walk up-to any of my office people and ask them a question or seek their council on something,I have that trust in them.. and the second thing that stands out is the kind of exposure that I am getting here. Both local and inter-National. And at the scale at which I am getting it. Who could of thought events like TechReady and MGX even existed! 

I am lucky that I am receiving all this and am writing beautiful stories for myself. Just like I have a book so does Microsoft. And I guess right now Microsoft is writing the part 2 of its book.

Talking about the transformation, to me it means two things:

First, the change in the product suits and

Second, the change in the workforce.

The change in products is more global in nature and the change in the workforce is more near to us, more local in nature.

To me this is not just a transformation. Its a re-inventiontion. Progress towards the next logical step of advancement. Just like children go from school to College which is the next logical progression for them and in college they get all kinds of freedom and opportunities, they may join French classes, they may play in college team, they may participate in college election, same way Microsoft is progressing, its is re-inventing itself for the next logical step of advancement.

Taking about the change in workforce, I would like to believe that it is working in the favor of the company. Just like I was anxious before joining I assume there were people inside the organization who were anxious too. But it is the situation like this when you step out of your comfort zone that the magic happens!

I perhaps belong to a pocket of people who are already transformed because when I joined these decisions were already made. But I hope to stay here long enough to see many such transformation aka progressions!"