Impactful leadership in a time of high digitalization: an interview with Hélène Barnekow, CEO Microsoft Sweden
Impactful leadership in a time of high digitalization: an interview with Hélène Barnekow, CEO Microsoft Sweden
We are grateful and proud that so many in our network are reaching out and sharing their experiences in these unprecedented times. It helps to share different perspectives on what it means to do business as usual, in unusual times. We recently interviewed Hélène Barnekow, CEO at Microsoft Sweden.
Below follows a transcript of the interview
You have been in leadership roles for the majority of your career. What are the personal traits that have drawn you in this direction?
I have never had a plan. I studied international business studies because I have a passion for different cultures and living and working in different countries. I explored different industries and ended up in Tech because it was about impact and wanting to make a difference. Back in the day there was a very clear career path and in order to make the most impact you had to rise to leadership roles. For me it has always been about making an impact, if I’ve changed roles it has always been because I have been attracted by the vision of being able to make a noticeable difference.
When you take on a new role, how do you approach it?
Its always an exciting moment and you have a few months where you really have to get to grips with the role in the way that suits you. Personally, I immerse myself in hundreds and hundreds of meetings, both with colleagues and with customers, investors and other stakeholders. For the first few months you don’t have a fixed internal perspective and you can gather information with very open eyes. For me it is particularly important to hold meetings right across the organisation, not just with the leadership team. This signals what type of leader you want to be; you want to be a leader that listens and gets first-hand information. The more unfiltered information you can gather at this stage, the better knowledge you will have about your tasks and goals as leader.
You’ve worked in large internationals where the culture must be well established. How do you go about making a difference where this is the case?
Even the larger companies such as Telia and Microsoft are in the process of transforming their culture and this is part of my remit to drive the transformation through. Cultural change does not happen through having good intentions; it happens through ‘doing’ things. Organisations might desire their culture should be for example about customer obsession, diversity and inclusion and a growth mindset, but simply stating this won’t make it happen. How do you take practical steps towards this? There are organisational requirements -what are the capabilities you need, what is needed in terms of re-skilling? But also what does it mean to me personally to lead in a customer obsessed way? What does it mean for me to be inclusive and embrace diversity? How do I develop or manifest a growth mindset as a leader?
What kind of culture do you personally like to create?
No matter what type or stage of maturity of the organisation you step into – authenticity is crucial. This is not only a standard I hold myself to, I also look for this when hiring leaders. When hiring leaders, you are not looking to recruit in your own image – that’s the last thing I want but I do want to hire people who are authentic about wanting to take people on that cultural journey. As we continue to evolve, it becomes increasingly important to me that there is an openness, a culture of trust and transparency – its value cannot be underestimated. Looking back 20 years it was all about ‘buzz words’ but today I don’t think you can attract talent using this method. There are shareholder expectations, customers and partners for sure; if you don’t create that in your culture you are very vulnerable. I think all leadership jobs are more complex today than they were in the past. Twenty years’ ago you could manage a silo through managerial excellence but now the world is much more interconnected and if you are not open and listening to what is going on more widely around you, you are going to fail.
So has your leadership style changed since you started?
Absolutely, you have to think about leadership in terms of continuous learning and evolving. You need fresh knowledge even if you are basing it on extensive experience. We have to support each other to change and to continue to learn.
Leading in a global organisation with so much information available must put some pressure on your time and priorities – how do you manage that?
At least once a week I like to write down my reflections, what was I spending my time on where I should have been and where did I go wrong? I learnt many years’ ago that large organisations are excellent time thieves so I appoint ‘buckets of time’, which varies from business to business but for example I might spend 50 per cent of my time externally, I try to limit my governance time to 20 per cent then the remainder is working with the team, development, coaching and other things internally. I would encourage others to think like this because time is our most valuable asset. It is very insightful to reflect on where I spent my time compared to where I made an impact.
Leadership is about balancing the short and long term , how do you manage this?
As a leader this is very important because your team will mostly be focussing on short term objectives and its easy to get immersed in them. Are you cutting a stone or building a church? It is about motivating the team to give their hard work a longer term purpose or direction. At the same time you do need to be connected to the business and not locked away in an office dreaming of a three-year strategy. For example, in my leadership team we have a weekly hour long meeting where we really focus on the short term things, who needs help, what needs course correction. Twice a month we have a leadership meeting where we focus on the things that take us to the long-term goals like the people agenda. It is important that these meetings do not descend into firefighting the here and now particularly during high pressure periods in the business.
What do you think is the key to the Microsoft success story?
That’s a big question. In the tech industry its quite easy to go from zero to hero and then back again. I have a huge respect for companies that not only create success but sustain that success. Microsoft has more than 45 years of success in changing how we use tech including its current transformation into a cloud-based company. Being able to reimagine itself is hugely important and if it hadn’t taken the decision to transform, then it would be on a completely different and probably less successful trajectory despite its global standing. Also, it is an extremely purpose driven company – to empower every person in every organisation in the world to achieve more. This is not just a slogan. they have made enormous investments into accessibility services, aggressive sustainability goals etc. Lastly, they create a culture and empower the business, to work towards a common purpose wherever they are in the world.
How has the pandemic impacted you?
There are pros and cons in every crisis. In terms of digitalisation, we had two years happen in just the first quarter of the pandemic. Luckily many companies had already invested in going towards flexibility around where we can work. In many countries the infrastructure was in place – but not all. I don’t hear our customers saying that they want to go back to the old ways of working – they want to keep the positives that they have seen in flexible working. I think we will not only see hybrid working but hybrid everything - hybrid way of enjoying culture. Solving problems digitally is actually very inclusive and this is extremely valuable. I find it mind boggling that we all used to get up in the morning, drive our cars to an office and sit at a desk to do tasks that we could from home or anywhere else in the world. We were creatures of habit.
Many leaders must be thinking how do we go back, what do our offices look like, what will our policies be. What are the trends you see?
The trends are clear. For our company work is something you do not somewhere you go to. For every meeting you choose whether you want to be in the office or connect remotely. There are some meetings where we do state that we want to be together, particularly our three annual two day leadership meetings, where being remote would not be as effective. I think this is the trend for all companies with this capability. Most of the companies I am talking to are going for somewhere like half and half in office and remote. I anticipate that this will evolve especially as it involves a change in leadership style and confidence grows.
Successful leadership is about bringing out the best in others. How do you approach that?
In an unforgettable leadership course I completed with Ericsson it was said “Your biggest task is to remove barriers for others.” As a young leader those words have stuck with me. How can I coach and mentor people so that they can remove those barriers for themselves? At Microsoft we have been highly focussed on coaching. Not solving problems when they are brought to you and making yourself a bottleneck but teaching the bringer how to solve them – everyone becomes a coach. It makes a world of difference.
Where do you get your inspiration from as a leader?
I am a little bit of an office junky, and I miss actually meeting people. I love to sit at a coffee shop where there is a flow of people. I talk to people, and I hear people talking to each other. I connect the conversations and get new insights and inspirations all the time. I also get inspiration from conversations and panel discussions like this one. I always encourage my team members to take unexpected meetings because that’s where you meet the unexpected questions and unexpected insights. Not every meeting should be transactional, not every meeting needs an agenda, and they certainly don’t all need a PowerPoint presentation. Leave space for spontaneity and creativity.
Hélène Barnekow, CEO Microsoft Sweden.
Previous experience: held numerous executive roles at Telia Sweden, Dell EMC and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. Also engaged as non-executive board member.
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