Women Rule at Microsoft
Having the opportunity to spend time interviewing some of the most influential and recognized women of MSN for the Women’s Guerilla Guide to Surviving and Thriving at MSN is a dream come true for a girl like me. After all I’m sitting there with women who have either already busted through the glass ceiling of a self admitted alpha organization or they’re banging pretty damn hard on it and the glass is cracking.
These women are articulate, intelligent, passionate, visionary and on fire! They’re not anti-men or anti-Microsoft. If they are anti-anything, they’re anti-sitting on your butt and letting the world suck you dry. They’re not career counseling in these interviews–they’re life coaching. They’re not talking any party line or answering to any preloaded rhetoric. They’re sharing from their hearts–the good, the bad, the ugly and the triumph of becoming authentic, empowered and actualized.
They speak to women, specifically, because that is my request, but to men, generally, because their words are droplets of life lessons that will fill any void in human achievement. Surviving and thriving as a woman at MSN, according to these women, isn’t about becoming someone else or taking on the qualities you see in others. It’s about manifesting yourself and cultivating the qualities you already possess. In many ways it’s a message of freedom–not in a bra burning way–but in a deeply self-reflective way. In a way that opens up women to the possibilities and potential of creating their destiny with intent, focus, determination and desire.
When the MSN Women’s Guerilla Guide to Surviving and Thriving at Microsoft hits the streets the clamor will not be over a clean crisp “How To Guide†or an angry, feminist male bashing treatise. The clamor will be over the bold, brash and brilliant way these women have shared their voices in order to reach out and connect with the people, the life blood, the essential essence of MSN.
