Bill Gates is not only famous for his work at the head of Microsoft, but for its enormous commitment and Requirement in the workplace. This demand reached such extremes that he was even able to Memorize cars registration that they had parked in front of the Microsoft headquarters to know which employees were still in the office and those who had gone home.
However, the founding millionaire was not always so diligent with his tasks and, as confessed in his latest autobiographical book ‘Code Source: My beginnings’I had the bad habit of hurry the time to study just before the exam. However, over time, and some help from the Japanese, he learned that postponing the tasks was not viable if he wanted to take Microsoft to fruition.
Gates’s youth in Harvard
Bill Gates reported in his book how his university years in Harvard were marked by the habit of skipping classes and postponing any academic responsibility. His strategy was to study thoroughly only a few hours before exams, a dynamic that he shared with Steve Ballmer, his partner in Harvard and Microsoft command successor years later.
“Steve and I paid very little to our classes, and then” we “furiously” Magnate in his book.
Both felt comfortable challenging the limits and seeking to approve with the lowest possible effort investment. Gates came to recognize that they faced each exam as an experiment to check how far the good results could go with the minimum effort.
This habit of delaying the tasks did not stay at the university, and soon moved to its professional beginnings after the Microsoft foundation. In his 1996 book, “Way to the future“Gates publicly admitted that That bad habit to postpone the tasks until the last moment became a real problem when the company grows.
With his attitude, the millionaire not only slowed his work, but also had an impact on Productivity and motivation of the rest of your team. Delaying decisions began to directly affect the morals, mood and results of those who worked with him. “After Paúl Allen and I founded Microsoft, I discovered that developing the habit of delaying things had not been the best preparation to direct a company,” Gates said in his book.
Gates himself estimated that he needed “a couple of years” to overcome what he called an “insane cycle”, in which he was lagging behind and generated an unavailable environment for his collaborators.
The impact of Japanese customers
Although in those days Gates was already beginning to be aware of his problem with procrastination in his tasks, he finished convincing when Microsoft began working with Japanese clients. In his book he pointed out that the relationship with Japanese companies played a crucial role in the process of changing habits. These companies, known for their discipline and iron control of the deadlines, did not tolerate delays.
“Among the first Microsoft clients were Japanese companies so methodical that, as soon as we delayed a minute with respect to programming, they sent someone by plane to watch us, as if we were children. They knew perfectly that their man could not help us at all, but remained in our office 18 hours a day to show us how much the subject cared,” the millionaire wrote. “
Gates remembered that delaying with Japanese companies was “somewhat painful” so that external rigor and the pressure of having a vigilante all day attached like a shadow, was the revulsive that Gates needed to modify your time management.
The millionaire assured that the process to leave the procrastination behind required a deep Review of your personal routines and professionals. Gates demonstrated that, although the transformation was not immediate, the Derived learning of those demands and rigor of its Japanese customers It was decisive to redefine both its personal development and Microsoft’s work culture.
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