The Customer-Driven Culture: A Microsoft Story

Chapter 9. In Conclusion

I sincerely hope you’ve had as much fun on this journey as I’ve had in sharing it with you. In conclusion, I want to give you a quick summary.

The Three Vital Behaviors

Throughout this entire book, I’ve given examples of the most fundamental behaviors that are required for any change effort. I encourage you to either use these behaviors or identify and name behaviors that will be important for your own change initiatives. As a reminder, here are the three vital behaviors for change:

Awareness

The ability to identify our own assumptions and biases, not only about our customers, but each other, and understanding that we don’t always have the complete picture in every situation.

Curiosity

After you’ve become aware of your own assumptions, you must ask questions, dig deeper, and seek a continual understanding of the impact of your efforts.

Courage

The bottom line is that change takes courage from all of us. It requires us to be willing to try something different and admit when our ideas might not be working. Building psychological safety isn’t just management’s job. It requires a commitment from all of us to engage in respectful behavior and support the process of learning, even when experiments prove our hypotheses wrong.

Hack #1: Establish a Common Language

In every culture, language is the tool we use to express our values, desires, and what matters to us most.

• If you change the language, you’ll change the thinking, which will change the actions ...