What’s it like to meet Bill Gates on a plane to Hawaii or ride the limo with Steve Balmer in Vegas? Adrienne Hall, General Manager of Microsoft Cloud Communications, would know because she was Employee #4029 who joined Microsoft back in 1990!

Before joining Microsoft, Adrienne was an elementary school teacher from Canada who moved to the U.S. to play tennis. A series of interesting events eventually brought her to Microsoft where she spent 32 years in 17 different positions across sales, policy, marketing, and communications.

Since Adrienne retired this Fall, I thought it would be an amazing opportunity to compile her many lessons and stories into 32 lessons for everyone else who hasn’t been lucky enough to hear them first-hand.

Focus on people

• Teamwork is important because everyone has a job that contributes to a bigger goal. Get along with your team and learn how to help others and learn from them. Figure out what makes them tick.
• Go through your career making friends not enemies. It’s a small world and you never know who will end up becoming your boss or teammate one day.
• Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. Be straightforward with colleagues when working with them and transparent with employees when you’re a manager.

Build confidence

• What you’re certain you know is sometimes not true. Balance your gut instincts with the data in front of you.
• As you advance into your career, you will shed some of the anxiety that you tend to have while earlier in your career. This feeling will liberate you with the confidence to experiment.
• If you’re feeling stuck, get busy and get curious. Talk to people, ask them for their advice, try something new or different that makes you feel uncomfortable.
• Invest in diverse experiences. Having a breadth of experience is valuable, especially when you’re early-in-career.

Manage yourself

• Be self-aware, not self-critical. Check in with your assumptions and seek feedback from others about how you present yourself in certain situations.
• Manage yourself and your anxieties (e.g. imposter syndrome) by rehearsing for difficult moments when you can. Stress out less and trust that you will figure things out.
• Self-reflection can help you deal with difficult people. Think about the situation and why you and the other person reacted in a certain way.
• Find a way to be heard. If you’re too nervous to speak up in a meeting, consider sharing your thoughts in an email afterwards.
• Get ruthless with how you spend your time. Figure out what you need to focus on to maximize impact.
• Manage your inbox and calendar effectively (set calendar blocks, reminders, and remember that you don’t need to read every single email that comes through).

Seek opportunities

• Don’t be afraid to throw your name in the hat but be prepared to compete for the job or opportunity.
• Keep your job hunting skills fresh. It’s fine to browse around for jobs to see what’s out there after you’ve been in a role for 18+ months.
• It’s time to find a new role when you have demonstrated mastery, no longer feel surprised, and/or are no longer learning new things. However, if you’re really enjoying what you do, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with staying put.
• You can create new roles for yourself when you see the opportunity. Look for unmet needs or problems and ask your manager if you can spend some time taking on stretch projects.
• Look for jobs that build out the skills and experiences that you’re missing. Seek projects that are challenging or completely different from what you’re used to.

Learn on the job

• Give yourself time to learn, it is ok not to be an expert right away.
• Just because you’re good at a job doesn’t mean you will enjoy it. Find a way to turn your job into something fulfilling or find something new to work on.
• Never waste a mistake. Learn from it and proactively share what you’d do differently next time.
• Learn how to say “No” (e.g. give someone guidance instead of doing the work for them)
• You’re chosen for opportunities when you show up and show that you have the right skills, aptitudes, and interests.
• Never believe that you’re a know-it-all even if you’ve been tasked to be the expert on a topic. There will always be blind spots or weaknesses that you can work on. Always have humility and a growth mindset.

Grow in your career

• The most important relationship you have at work is the one with your manager. 70% of the reason people leave their jobs is because of their managers. You owe it to yourself to improve the relationship, but don’t be afraid to make a move if you continue to struggle in connecting with your manager.
• Lateral career moves can help you acquire different skills and become more well-rounded.
• Being more well-rounded helps you stand out when you’re looking to advance into senior leadership positions.
• Don’t feel awkward about having professional development conversations. Keep sharing what your interests, goals, and aspirations are (e.g. promotion) with your peers and managers so that they don’t need to guess what you want.
• Remember that not everyone has the same ambitions. Some people are perfectly content with where they are right now. Others want to advance in different ways.

Develop yourself

• Create a professional development plan and keep it updated. Not many people do this.
• Sponsors are there to help when you have an explicit objective and want to ask them for their support. For example, if you want a job on a team, ask a sponsor to send a note to the hiring manager. They can also help you with other goals like speaking up more (in which case they can try to give you more opportunities to speak in a meeting).
• Mentors help you learn new things and develop your skills. They can advise you on your career situations and challenges. Find mentors based on what you need help with.

Everyday you make a choice. Choose to be the best self you can be, today.

adrienne hall

Thank you so much to Adrienne for being a genuine and inspiring leader who is open to sharing her career learnings with all of us! When I first moved to the U.S. and joined the Cloud Communications team in January, I was touched that Adrienne personally reached out to welcome me onto the team and tell me that she would be there for me if I ever needed to talk! In the past year, I’ve enjoyed attending her career talks and learning from her riveting stories about achievements, mistakes, and everything in between. All the best in your retirement!

Found this interesting? You can find a lot more great advice and stories from people at Microsoft here!