How to Build a Successful Company Like Microsoft?

by Amanda Johnson, Employee Motivation Consultant for ClickHelp.com — professional technical writing tool

I work as an employee motivation consultant for technical writers. And I faced with the necessity of team building, because good relationships between co-workers may really be helpful for successful promotion of a company.

The striking example is Microsoft. Phil Spencer is the Executive Vice President of Gaming at Microsoft. He’s currently the head of the Xbox brand. In the interview he shared his thoughts about toxic atmosphere in the company and how it influenced on the success.

Differences were commonplace in the company. Moral decay and lack of confidence between management and employees affected the sales and market share of Xbox One dropped.

“Toxic behavior doesn’t just hurt an individual. It hurts our community” — Phil Spencer

Phil Spencer gave pieces of advice how to build a solid team:

• Develop empathy and trust within a team. The team leader should pay the attention to worries of the team and learn to trust them.
• Be a real leader and take responsibility. “It’s the leader’s job to absorb the hit…and to be clear about our culture and what we stand for,” Phil Spencer says.
• Learn from mistakes. He describes this statement in this way, “One of my biggest areas of a growth leader is to listen first instead of jumping in with supposed answers.”
• Listen and amplify people who are less willing to speak up. “Some people are just quieter,” he said. “Oftentimes, the best ideas and solutions come from the quiet ones.”

These tips are really useful and I take them into account working with ClickHelp Team. In my current program for team building I use games. And I want to share methods and my positive experience with you.

1. What’s my name?

Create a set of names on Post-It notes. It should be famous people or characters that everyone knows. For example, Elizabeth I or Donald Duck. Then stick a note on each member’s forehead. People should move around the room and ask only yes or no questions until they guess. So people will interact with those co-workers with whom they didn’t communicate before.

2. Hole Tarp

You need a ball, a circular tarp and scissors. Make holes on the tarp. Members of the team should shake it in order to not drop the ball.

This game develops such qualities as carefulness, deliberateness and so on.

3. Electric Fence

Tighten a rope between two chairs. A member of the team must be touching another member and get over the rope. This gave helps to spark creativity and brainstorm ideas.

4. Spider Web

This game for outdoors. Create a web using ropes. In order to reach the other side members should cross it without touching. Moreover members shouldn’t cross the same shapes as anyone before them.

5. Reverse Charades

In ordinal charades one person acts while other members of the group try to guess. But in reverse charades rules are opposite. One person tries to guess but others stand up and work together. This version of the game is more useful for team building because members of the team must work closely together.

These tips had a positive impact on our team. Employees became more responsible and considerate of each other. Managers started to heed the views of office workers. Of course this is just the beginning and we have much to do. And I’ll keep sharing my experience with you! In order to not miss my new articles join my blog and social media where you’ll find not only cognitive articles but inspiration and motivational pictures.

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What are your tips for team building? What do you want to change in your team and how?

Amanda Johnson,
Employee Motivation Consultant for ClickHelp.com — best online documentation tool for SaaS vendors