How to build a culture within the company by Srikanth Karnakota, Country Head for Microsoft Azure & Server Business
What is culture? The Oxford dictionary defines culture as the art and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively; the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society; or the attitudes and behaviour characteristic of a particular social group.
At the TechSparks 2016 event, referring to founders of startups and companies, Srikanth Karnakota, Country Head for Microsoft Azure and Server Business at Microsoft Corporation, India, says that culture is about deciding how you execute things which you want to do.
- Culture is defined based on a set of underlying values and behaviours – which can be integrity, honesty and respect for others, among many others.
“It is those underlying values which set the culture of the company and decide where and how the company will grow,” says Srikanth.
- Right culture is the mantra of Microsoft’s growth.
Shedding light on the healthy growth culture, Srikanth talks about the values of Microsoft and shares some of the current growth examples, which owe to the company’s values.
When Microsoft’s search engine Bing was launched in 2009, everyone was asking why there’s a need of another search engine. The outer world had so many reservations about this new product. Seven years down line, Microsoft’s share of desktop search is now sitting at 21.6 percent.
“Tenacity and persistence are the two values that bring the product to this level,” says Srikanth. This has been proved in various other cases as well.
- How do we build right culture?
Technology alone can’t take a company ahead. It can’t work unless the company has a beautiful view, which is the culture.
The key is to move from knowing it all to learning it all.
Srikanth says that the company needs to develop a kind of culture among employees; between the management and the employees.
He, however, cautioned that all the lofty talks on a highly conducive culture existing in the company shouldn’t just be on power point slides, but in the hearts and minds of the founder and the employees.
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