Ten attributes of a good employee: By Bill Gates By Bill Gates
Thomas Astebro
From: Jason Worry <jason...@nuvation.com>
Reply-To: "jason...@nuvation.com" <jason...@nuvation.com>
To: "'tast...@mansci1.uwaterloo.ca'" <tast...@mansci1.uwaterloo.ca>
Cc: "'mmil...@novice.uwaterloo.ca'" <mmil...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: FW: Big Bill
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 04:11:46 -0700
Organization: Nuvation
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Status: U
Thought that you would enjoy this...also attached is the employee one
that you might want to share with the class.
jay
Ten attributes of a good employee <BR>(4/23/97)
By Bill Gates
I'm often asked how to be a good manager, a topic I've taken on in this
column more than once. Less often does anybody ask an equally important
question: What makes a good employee?
Here are 10 of the qualities I find in the "best and brightest"
employees,
the people companies should attract and retain.
If you have all of these attributes, you're probably a terrific
employee.
First, it's important to have a fundamental curiosity about the product
or
products of your company or group. You have to use the products
yourself.
This can't be stressed enough in the computer world. It also carries
special weight in other knowledge-based fields where technology and
practices are advancing so fast that's it's very hard to keep up. If you
don't have a fascination with the products, you can get out of
date--and
become ineffective--pretty quickly.
Second, you need a genuine interest in engaging customers in discussions
about how they use products--what they like, what they don't like. You
have
to be a bit of an evangelist with customers, and yet be realistic about
where your company's products are falling short and could be better.
Third, once you understand your customer's needs, you have to enjoy
thinking through how a product can help. If you work in the software
industry, for example, you might ask: "How can this product make work
more
interesting? How can it make learning more interesting? How can it be
used
in the home in more interesting ways?"
These first three points are related. Success comes from understanding
and
caring deeply about your products, your technology and your customers'
needs.
Fourth, you as an individual employee should maintain the same type of
long-term approach that a good company does. Employees need to focus on
lifelong goals such as developing their own skills and those of the
people
they work with. This kind of self-motivation requires discipline, but it
can be quite rewarding.
Management can also encourage motivation, of course. If you're in sales,
quotas are important tools for measuring performance, and it's great
when
employees beat a quota. But if beating your sales quota or maximizing
your
next bonus or salary increase is all that motivates you, you're likely
to
miss out on the kind of teamwork and development that create success in
the
long term.
Fifth, you need to have specialized knowledge or skills while
maintaining a
broad perspective. Big companies, in particular, need employees who can
learn specialties quickly. No one should assume that the expertise they
have today will suffice tomorrow, so a willingness to learn is critical.
Sixth, you have to be flexible enough to take advantage of opportunities
that can give you perspective. At Microsoft we try to offer a person
lots
of different jobs through the course of a career. Anyone interested in
joining management is encouraged to work in different customer units,
even
if it means moving laterally within the organization or relocating to a
different part of the world.
We try to move people from our product groups out into the field and
move
field people into the product groups. We have many people in our U.S.
subsidiary from other countries, and we have many U.S. employees who
work
for subsidiaries in other nations. This helps us better understand world
markets, and while we do a pretty good job of cross-pollination, there's
still not quite as much of it as I would like.
Seventh, a good employee will want to learn the economics of the
business.
Why does a company do what it does? What are its business models? How
does
it make money?
I'm always surprised to learn of a company that doesn't educate its
employees in the fundamental financial realities of its industry.
Employees
need to understand the "make or break" aspects of their industry so that
they know what it is about their own job that really counts. Of course,
employees have to be willing students who direct attention to the areas
where it makes the biggest difference.
Eighth, you must focus on competitors. I like employees who think about
what's going on in the marketplace. What are our competitors doing
that's
smart? What can we learn from them? How can we avoid their mistakes?
Ninth, you've got to use your head. Analyze problems but don't fall prey
to
"analysis paralysis." Understand the implications of potential tradeoffs
of
all kinds, including the tradeoff between acting sooner with less
information and later with more.
Use your head in practical ways, too. Prioritize your time effectively.
Think about how to give advice crisply to other groups.
Finally, don't overlook the obvious essentials such as being honest,
ethical and hard working. These attributes are critical and go without
saying.
What makes a good manager? Here are ten tips
(10/8/97)
By Bill Gates
Recently I wrote about 10 qualities of a good employee, which prompted
quite a few people to ask about the attributes of a good manager.
There isn't a magic formula for good management, of course, but if
you're a
manager, perhaps these tips will help you be more effective.
1. Choose a field thoughtfully. Make it one you enjoy. It's hard to be
productive without genuine enthusiasm. This is true whether you're a
manager or employee.
2. Hire carefully and be willing to fire. You need a strong team,
because a
mediocre team gives mediocre results, no matter how well managed it is.
One common mistake is holding onto somebody who doesn't quite measure
up.
It's easy to keep this person on the job because he's not terrible at
what
he does. But a good manager will replace him or move him to a set of
responsibilities where he can succeed unambiguously.
3. Create a productive environment. This is a particular challenge
because
it requires different approaches depending on the context.
Sometimes you maximize productivity by giving everybody his or her own
office. Sometimes you achieve it by moving everybody into open space.
Sometimes you use financial incentives to stimulate productivity. A
combination of approaches is usually required.
One element that almost always increases productivity is providing an
information system that empowers employees.
When I was building Microsoft, I set out to create an environment where
software developers could thrive. I wanted a company where engineers
liked
to work. I wanted to create a culture that encouraged them to work
together, share ideas and remain highly motivated. If I hadn't been a
software engineer myself, there's no way I could have achieved my goal.
As
the company grew, we developed supportive cultures in our international
operations and in sales and marketing, too.
4. Define success. Make it clear to your employees what constitutes
success
and how they should measure their achievements.
Goals must be realistic. Project schedules, for example, must be set by
the
people who do the work. People will accept a "bottoms-up" deadline they
helped set, but they'll be cynical about a schedule imposed from the top
that doesn't map to reality. Unachievable goals undermine an
organization.
At my company, in addition to regular team meetings and one-on-one
sessions
between managers and employees, we use mass gatherings periodically and
e-mail routinely to communicate what we expect from employees.
If a reviewer or customer chooses another company's product over ours,
we
analyze the situation carefully. We say to our people, "The next time
around we've got to win. What will it take? What's needed?" The answers
to
these questions help us define success.
5. To be a good manager, you have to like people and be good at
communicating. This is hard to fake. If you don't genuinely enjoy
interacting with people, it'll be hard to manage them well.
You must have a wide range of personal contacts within your
organization.
You need relationships-not necessarily personal friendships?with a fair
number of people, including your own employees. You must encourage these
people to tell you what's going on (good or bad) and give you feedback
about what people are thinking about the company and your role in it.
6. Develop your people to do their jobs better than you can. Transfer
your
skills to them.
This is an exciting goal, but it can be threatening to a manager who
worries that he's training his replacement. If you're concerned, ask
your
boss: "If I develop somebody who can do my job super well, does the
company
have some other challenge for me or not?"
Many smart managers like to see their employees increase their
responsibilities because it frees the managers to tackle new or undone
tasks. There's no shortage of jobs for good managers. The world has an
infinite amount of work to be done.
7. Build morale. Make it clear there's plenty of good will to go around
and
that it's not just you as some hotshot manager who's going to look good
if
things go well.
Give people a sense of the importance of what they're working on-its
importance to the company, its importance to customers.
When you achieve great results, everybody involved should share in the
credit and feel good about it.
8. Take on projects yourself. You need to do more than communicate. The
last thing people want is a boss who just doles out stuff. From time to
time, prove you can be hands-on by taking on one of the less attractive
tasks and using it as an example of how your employees should meet
challenges.
9. Don't make the same decision twice. Spend the time and thought to
make a
solid decision the first time so that you don't revisit the issue
unnecessarily. If you're too willing to reopen issues, it interferes not
only with your execution but also with your motivation to make a
decision
in the first place. After all, why bother deciding an issue if it
isn't
really decided?
People hate indecisive leadership, so you have to make choices. However,
that doesn't mean you have to decide everything the moment it comes to
your
attention. Nor that you can't ever reconsider a decision.
10. Let people know whom to please. Maybe it's you, maybe it's your
boss,
and maybe it's somebody who works for you. You're in trouble--and
risking
paralysis in your organization--when employees start saying to
themselves:
"Am I supposed to be making this person happy or this other person
happy?
They seem to have different priorities."
I don't pretend that these are the only 10 approaches a manager should
keep
in mind, or even that they're the most important ones. There are lots of
others. Just a month ago, for example, I encouraged leaders to demand
bad
news before good news from their employees.
But these 10 ideas may help you manage well, and I hope they do.