One of the most revealing benchmarks of a leader is what their teams can produce when the conditions are stacked against them. I’ve spent my career thinking about how to inspire a team to not only persevere but thrive in those environments. Interestingly, it’s under those same conditions where our best work is produced.
There are four priorities that guide my decisions: customer, company, culture, and careers. Every day my responsibility is to recognize what is important and what can wait, when the answers aren’t obvious and the minutes are precious. Here is a story about what those priorities look like under pressure, and what a team can accomplish when the order holds.
From flexible to non-negotiable: The mindset shift the team needed
A few years ago, our Data Center Solutions (DCS) business unit reached an inflection point. We had missed a critical window which, in the data center space, is a rapidly compounding problem. Massive infrastructure decisions get made without you. Ecosystems form around competitors. The window of opportunity doesn’t reopen on your schedule.
That inflection point wasn’t limited to a single business unit. About a year ago, Microchip took a hard look at itself, and we recognized that change was necessary. Years of acquisitions and organic growth had expanded the company, but they had also introduced complexity that affected how consistently we executed. Between 2008 and 2020, Microchip acquired roughly sixteen different companies. While that growth strengthened the portfolio, it also left parts of the organization fragmented, with silos, various ideals around business processes, and competing priorities slowing decision-making. Over the last year, we’ve addressed those issues directly and have worked to restructure strategy, reorganize teams, and realign the company around how we wanted to operate going forward.
