Case Studies for Individuals

One person’s transformation at Microsoft

Dear Larry,

Last Friday I tried out some of your identity Mapping worksheets with a mentee I’ve been working with.  It was a profound session for both of us — the identity work led her into some deep reflection and a breakthrough I want to tell you about. 

This is a young Indian woman who works here – very intelligent. She comes from a traditional Indian family in which the place of a woman is quite proscribed.  She herself is something of a rebel who has transcended her boundaries in many ways. Her family expected her to marry an Indian man and stick to the expected role of “proper” wife and mother. Instead she applied to the top social sciences school in India and got in.  After that she decided to come to the States, where she fell in love with and married an American and is now working for our company.  She is a strong performer here, but has felt a yearning not to do just “corporate work,” but find a role in the company that would let her do more meaningful work that “helps people”.  She is trying to get known by a few groups here who do community and citizenship-focused work, with the hope of eventually joining them.  She came to me for mentoring and help in finding the career path that is right for her in Microsoft. 

It occurred to me that this employee could really benefit from working through your Identity Mapping workbook, as I did over the summer. I haven’t used it with anyone, but decided to give it a try.  Last Friday we went through the materials.  She worked through the “What you love” and “Basic nature themes” pretty smoothly.  Some interesting themes emerged that we discussed and she got some good insights.  Then she tackled the “Life Themes” page.  When I reviewed her sheet I was struck by the emphasis on deep connection to her family of origin and her courage and determination to blaze a more open trail for her own life.  None of the items on the Life Themes sheet were about achievements at work.   We talked about this.  She put everything on the formal Identity Statement sheet and we both looked at it.  The word “achievement” was all over all three of her lists.  I felt that we needed to get underneath this word to something more specific.  All of a sudden, looking at the lists, it occurred to me that achievement in her life was related to justice — justice for her as an Indian woman, for other Indian women, and for disadvantaged people in the world.  I tried this out — inquiring whether, for her, there was a connection. 

As soon as I said the word “justice” you could see it hit her.  The change in her face was immediate — flushed face, tearing up, eyes wide.  She said — “Yes, that’s really what it’s about for me,” and proceeded to change all of the “achievements” references on her lists to “justice”.  She realized that this is what’s core to her life and where her future lies in the work world.  It was a very powerful moment for both of us. She left telling me how much the session had meant to her.  She will work with her identity statement at home and we’ll meet again in a month. 

I wanted to share this with you because it was an amazing experience and it was your worksheets that took us down this path.  We didn’t spend a lot of time on the theory.  We just walked through an experience together following the trail you gave us and it made a major difference in this person’s clarity on what her work is in this world — and here at Microsoft.  So thank you, from me and from my mentee.

 

Leslie Osborn
Director, People and Organization Capability
Microsoft
September 2008

 

 

 

'Ivan' – A story of redemption

 

Redemption comes in many forms.

 

Romanian-born, Ivan immigrated to the United States when he was 12 years old and has retained strong ties to his country of origin to this day. Ivan succeeded in gaining an MBA from a top-ten, American business school and an engineering degree from a leading graduate program. Newly-married, he, his wife and child lived a thriving life in the Midwestern part of the U.S.

 

In an instant, Ivan’s life changed forever: his wife and son were killed in an airplane crash not far from their home. Ivan’s sense of guilt and pain were palpable. For several years, he floundered, taking various jobs, getting involved in misguided relationships and, often, losing faith in himself and others. He was running out of money. And time. My work with Ivan lasted 6 months, during which time I led him through various exercises designed to give him a new-found sense of purpose, based upon his identity. Ivan was a gifted man; indeed, he was what we termed, a resourceful humanist, able to blend an exceptional ability to get things done with a deep-seated compassion for people – a trait Ivan chalked up to his Eastern European roots.

 

Our efforts slowly revealed Ivan’s innate fascination with how society worked: how things got built, what made communities strong, how nations managed to grow.  “Infrastructure development” was what he called it. He referred often to the ports, roads, and cities that were sorely needed in still-developing countries. As we built a foundation for articulating his identity, Ivan became more animated, more alive than he’d been in a long time. Suddenly, in the course of an evening working together, his identity became clear: Ivan was driven by the need to create societal infrastructures that enhance prosperity and social progress. This drive had always been “in” the man, only now, it was apparent.

 

Today, Ivan is working with an engineering concern in the Middle East that builds infrastructure around the world. He has a sense of purpose; he knows why he is doing the work he does, a fact that brings not only income, but some degree of serenity to an individual whose tragic personal experience had brought him to the brink of despair.

 

 

How can you lead others, if you don’t know who you are? The story of 'Scott Brady'

 

Truly effective leaders aren’t only successful business people. They are also successful human beings.

 

Newco, a fifty-year old conglomerate, had just completed a rigorous identity analysis. The aim? To determine if there was something to the enterprise that might explain the value of the whole and, thus, the logic of keeping the company together. Investors, even employees, weren’t convinced; many thought that the parts were worth more on their own.

 

In fact, four distinct capacities transcended all lines of business, revealing how the company created value. Among them, Newco’s passion for social commerce and a deep-seated drive to optimize which explained the company’s remarkable use of assets over time. For years, Scott Brady, the CEO, had been struggling to answer peoples’ questions about what the company really stood for, beyond the lines of business it contained and the customers it served. Now, he was in a position to do so. Almost.

 

Scott’s dedication to Newco was both genuine and obvious. The successful identity initiative had given the CEO a new lens for communicating his concern’s value-creating potential. Unwittingly, it also upped the ante on his conversations with stakeholders, especially, employees – the identity study had not only answered the question, who are we, but also raised the question, who are you? It was a moment of truth – and opportunity – for Scott Brady. Over a two month period, Scott applied the identity discipline to himself. He uncovered capacities he’d never seen before. He was able to spell out how, simply as an individual, he created value in the world. In essence, he was able to speak the language of identity as a way to illustrate his connection to Newco in personally meaningful terms.

 

If leadership is about anything, it is about trust: getting people to want to follow you. Going through the identity mapping process, Scott Brady became authentic in the eyes of his employees. In one speech to the organization, he began with these words: “Today, I don’t want to address you as simply the CEO of Newco; I want to talk to you as a man, as a person whose life, like yours, is tied to the health of this organization, and who has learned a few things about himself he’d like to share.”  With those words, Scott Brady made himself instantly accessible and, as a result, more believable, more interesting – and more aligned with the 60,000 people who counted on his capacity to lead them.

 

 

A letter from 'Susan' – Building a personal brand

 

Larry,

 

It seems you've created a unique way to help individuals realize what value they bring to themselves, their companies and the world.  That is a question I have pondered for some time with [my company]. What is my value?  [My company] is littered with people who are searching for what works best for them.  Look at me, I'm a degreed engineer. I have worked for extended periods of time in operations, in supply chain, corporate, marketing and sales.  It took me many years to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.  I'm actually just figuring that out now. Thank you for helping me do that.

 

What I now realize is that each of us has a personal brand, but we usually design it in the wrong way. We talk about our image – how we think people should perceive us – our skills and experience, and maybe our personality. We don’t build an authentic brand, which is what you help people do. We don’t tap our identities, or the capacities that support them. But we should. 

 

I am not just an “engineer.” I have much more to bring to my work and my company, but no one asks for these things. So, in some ways, when I go to the office, I leave the best parts of me behind. My “brand’ is me as a whole person, not just me as a worker-bee. I need to bring that brand to life, and will hopefully do so here. But if not here, then in an organization that appreciates who I am.

 

Sincerely,

 

Susan

 

 

Note: The names of individuals and companies have been changed to maintain confidentiality.