[cookiecaper]

Essentially, this article is complaining that Nadella is playing politics. When you're dependent on mass complicity, boasting airy platitudes and leaving the plan publicly undefined (that is, saying a bunch of stuff that's impossible to disagree with) is the only way to succeed. You don't become CEO of Microsoft by being a political ignoramus. Nadella knew this would go public and is using it to project the image the company wishes to attain for itself. It doesn't matter if it's real or not, the mere act of repetition does much to reinforce the belief in the audience's mind.

I've learned that the most successful C-levels will almost never commit anything substantive to writing. Send them an email looking for direction and it's always, "Let's talk about that tomorrow". There are a lot of strong political reasons for that.

[ksikka]

Absolutely true. Nadella knows exactly what he's trying to say, but he has to fluff it up to avoid ambush.

But at his level, you're gonna get ambushed by someone no matter what you write.

[lstamour]

Perhaps this was why Steve was so exciting. :) Of course, it caught up to the company in courts, but ...