Satya Nadella transformed Microsoft’s culture during his decade as CEO by turning everyone into ‘learn-it-alls’ instead of ‘know-it-alls’

Instead of resting on its laurels, Microsoft must “stay humble, stay hungry, and exhibit a growth mindset,” he told Fortune’s Jeremy Kahn.

Those who live by a growth mindset “believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point,” Carol Dweck, coiner of the term and a Stanford psychologist, said in 2015. That’s contrasted from a fixed mindset, wherein people believe their skills are innate or a fixed quality, or that “talent alone creates success.” 

Nadella doesn’t buy the latter concept. Staying on your toes in the ever-developing tech world where AI is changing the game means sometimes being willing to dance a bit, or move with the flow.

Indeed, the growth mindset has become the software company’s most favored buzzword of the decade, leaping from every intro psych class textbook into the speeches of Microsoft executives. The shift from being a “know-it-all” to “learn-it-all” is a defining part of Nadella’s messaging when it comes to his desired workplace culture, writes Kahn.

At Microsoft, being a learn-it-all requires an embrace of upskilling, according to a company blog post, which said it’s difficult, if not impossible, to gain new skills if a company’s culture says “we’ve learned all we can.”

 “If you take two kids at school, one of them has more innate capability but is a know-it-all. The other person has less innate capability but is a learn-it-all. The learn-it-all does better than the know-it-all,” Nadella said back in 2019 on the podcast Hello Monday. 

That’s a sharp left turn from a pre-Nadella culture, explained Scott Hanselman, vice president of Microsoft’s developer community. 

The change is seen down to the software itself. Hanselman said the tech giant had a reputation for forcing developers to use the company’s entire tech stack. There’s less of a top-down approach at play now, as developers are now allowed to select certain features to implement and are asked for feedback on what they’d like to see more from the company.

“Azure is beholden to them; they are the customer, and they will keep using it if they find it helpful and delightful,” he told Kahn.

Nadella isn’t the only one imploring employees to learn more. Implementing a new way of work was trying at first, Kathleen Hogan, chief people officer at Microsoft, explained in 2019. Making the shift was “tricky to navigate because many people wanted a simpler narrative of ‘This is good; that was bad,’” she said. Rejecting this more rigid way of viewing things, she explained that “it was really important for us to say, ‘This is how we have to evolve to be relevant in the future,’ versus being dismissive of the past.”

And as Nadella charges forward after a decade of leadership, he remains loyal to this concept of staying fluid and constantly growing or changing.