All my friends joke about how much of an NBA junkie I am. I grew up mesmerized by the clutch fade-aways by Dirk Nowitzki, crisp passes by Lebron James, strong post moves by Tim Duncan, and flashy jumpers by Kobe Bryant. But what drew me to basketball wasn’t just the flashy highlights. Rather, it was the process of building/maintaining a team and its culture to achieve success in a highly scrutinized, pressured environment. How did the 2013-2014 Golden State Warriors go from bottom feeders to championship contenders a year later? How do the San Antonio Spurs continue to find quality players who went low in drafts, undrafted, or waived from previous teams? How do the 2016-2017 New York Knicks accumulate so much talent, but still struggle to make the playoffs?

Many factors play in developing a quality team. The most important is a system that encourages a growth mindset, adaptability to changes, and strong personnel to be on the same page.

• The 2010 Warriors were in limbo; they relied heavily on an isolation scorer, couldn’t get their superstar Stephen Curry enough playing time due to his injuries, and didn’t have the right supporting players. Joe Lacob bought the team that year to implement his vision to keep up with the small ball trend in the NBA: a pass heavy system with more emphasis on 3-point shots. Lacob quickly hired the right personnel and acquired players to support Curry. The Warriors recently went back-to-back in the finals and won it all in 2015.
• The Spurs won 3 championships with a system that focused on their elite big men who dominated the paint. But with the NBA shifting to a faster, 3-point movement, the Spurs refined their system to prioritize their guards/forwards more, and subsequently won 2 more championships.
• The New York Knicks made all the right moves on paper. Their president implemented a fast paced system and brought in a former MVP and a former Defensive Player of the Year to complement their existing rising superstar. But the Knicks couldn’t buy into the system implemented. Their acquisitions struggled to keep up with the fast pace and turned to their isolation plays that made them famous. The Knicks’ system didn’t utilize the talents of the individuals brought in.

The principles of a successful NBA system parallel those behind Microsoft’s recent success. Satya has always encouraged a growth mindset, changing the company’s goal to reflect on how much we need to improve. His focus to change Microsoft internally improved culture and morale drastically since the Ballmer years; many employees remembered how the previous direction generated a cutthroat environment where teams were pitted against each other, and marveled at such openness and collaboration. Satya then pushed for a revised business model to both accommodate the growing demand in cloud and mobile and stopped pressuring developers and customers to use Microsoft products exclusively. Microsoft went for a mobile first, cloud first approach to make it easier to access their products on various platforms. Rebranding the company as a friendly corporation that empowers people to achieve more, as well as improving morale and team collaboration, helped Microsoft reemerge as a key contributor in the tech industry and drove its stock price to its highest since 1999.

What’s more impressive than Satya’s mobile first, cloud first direction is how he incorporated his vision with the hardware focus approach that defined the Ballmer years. With all failures aside (Zune), Ballmer is a talented individual who envisioned success in the long term. He laid the groundwork for Surface, Xbox, Cortana, Office 365, and Band. Ballmer even went against his Windows-only belief by approving a touch-first Office for iPad and iPhone, as he admitted the project may be important in the future. But Ballmer struggled in the short term, as he was stubborn to keep Microsoft products exclusive and resisted to change what made Microsoft successful in the first place. Microsoft knew that to accommodate mobile and cloud demand, they couldn’t rely on a talented CEO who specialized in the exact opposite. With Satya as the head, Microsoft popularized all of Ballmer’s hardware projects to fit the mobile first, cloud first paradigm.

An effective system is more than just excellent talent and personnel; it’s about getting the right people on board with the vision. Had Microsoft gone with Ballmer during its new focus, they would have ended up as dysfunctional as the 2016-2017 New York Knicks. An effective system also lays the groundwork for success, one that can adapt to change easily to reflect demand. Satya kept pieces that defined the Gates and Ballmer eras, but rebranded them to support a cloud, mobile focus. Even though it is in its early stages, Microsoft is considering rebranding further to support the recent demand in open source. Microsoft is thinking about supporting free web applications that allow third party developers to add new features to and external consumers to use. The usage of such applications can entice customers to purchase Microsoft products, which can help the company profit from open source. Adapting to current trends is how the Spurs never missed the playoffs since 1999, and won a championship in 3 different decades.

All it took was for Microsoft to make a CEO change to accelerate into depths they couldn’t reach before. Somewhere, Joe Lacob is smiling.