Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on why empathy is essential for technology innovation

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said an empathy misjudgement could have stopped him securing his first job at the corporation back in the 1990s, while detailing the steps he has taken to make it more supportive and collaborative place to work since becoming CEO.

Speaking at a Q&A to discuss the launch of his Hit Refresh book, on Friday 29 September, Nadella outlined the work that has gone into transforming Microsoft’s business culture since he took over the reins of the company from Steve Ballmer in 2014.

These include getting its leadership teams to appreciate the value of mindfulness, and introducing its leadership team to the concept of using “non-violent communications” when offering feedback on other people’s ideas.

“Our culture at Microsoft was such that we used to go to this class that was called Precision Question, and the idea was to destroy anybody’s idea in the first five minutes by asking these highly precise, analytical questions that would disrupt the speakers’ hypothesis,” he said.

“It was a very useful analytical tool to have, except it was being used as an instrument of offence.

“This is one of the reasons why I said, if we want to be an effective leadership team, we will have to practice this non-violent communication,” said Nadella.

When he originally joined the company in 1992, it seems empathy is a concept Nadella could have used a little coaching on himself, when a question – at the end of his eight-hour interview to join Microsoft – a he would react to seeing a baby crying in the street left him stumped.

“I thought about it for a couple minutes, and came up with this brilliant answer – or so I thought – which was to call 911,” he said.

“He [the interviewer] gets up, walks me out and says, ‘when you see a baby on the street that’s fallen down, pick them up and hug them’, so I thought I’d absolutely blown it and that was the end of it. But I did subsequently get the job.”

Over the years, he has grown to appreciate the importance of empathy in driving innovation and ensuring the products it gives rise to meet the “unmet and unarticulated” needs of its customers.

“You can’t go work and say, ‘let me switch on that empathy button and be great at business’, and that’s why I think life experiences and learning from it and being able to translate that into work is the way to think about harmonising what is most important to us as humans, what is most important to us as organisations trying to create value and perhaps even as societies trying to adapt to change,” he said.