12 ½ years ago I made a “keystone” decision in both my professional and personal life. I began my career at Honeywell in Redmond and after 13 years I knew I had to change companies if I was going to continue progressing in my career. I also knew that leaving the Seattle area was not an option-my daughter, Monica, was 5 at the time and lived with her mom. Leaving would mean I would be leaving her…simply not an option.

God has an amazing way of working things out. A former employee of mine at Honeywell worked in Microsoft Hardware and saw the potential for my skills in Six Sigma to improve the way Microsoft designed and produced hardware. Before I knew it I was working for Microsoft, my office move was less than a mile. While in building 109 I often times reflected of the softball games we played at Honeywell in the fields where building 109 now sat. Microsoft was bigger than life and I had been given an opportunity that most people dream of. My first day was January 6, 2003.

On July 8, 2015 I rode my bike to the Pro Club to run on the treadmill (a “brick day” in my triathlon training regime). As I read the news and the emails about the restructuring I was saddened, but knew it was imminent. Would I be affected I wondered? With absolute certainty I said no. 2 hours later I mentioned it to my wife on the phone and she asked if I’d be affected. With absolute certainty I said “no”. Less than 5 minutes later I was in my boss’s office with an HR representative and was informed that my position had been eliminated. I was in shock and called my wife-her response was the same response I’ve gotten from almost everyone I’ve told “you’re kidding, right?” I had to tell her 3 times that I wasn’t kidding, my last day at Microsoft would be Friday.

I have built a habit into my life of using reflection to energize personal growth. Every year I reflect on my previous years and document it, using my learnings to set goals for my future. I guess you can say the Deming cycle of “Plan, Do, Check, Act” is part of my personal DNA and I use it to continuously improve. This blog post is my first reflection. My hope and prayer is that the readers of this document will benefit from it as much as I will.

“Consider it joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials knowing the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect result so that you will be perfect and complete lacking in nothing” James 1:2-4

My strongest emotion since this new is gratitude and I want to express that gratitude in no uncertain terms. Microsoft is an incredible company to work for in virtually every aspect. On a personal note, Microsoft and my management have always done whatever they could to assist me when life’s trials came up. When my wife got cancer, Microsoft’s benefits paid for nearly all of her treatment and I was given whatever time I needed to be with her (she is now cancer free!) When my daughter was born I was given 4 weeks of paid paternity leave (one of the best experiences of my life). The same happened when my son was born. When my teenage daughter was struggling Microsoft benefits paid for 100% of her treatment (she is now doing incredibly well!). When I needed time to take care of my mom in the hospital I was told I could work remotely if necessary. When I was struggling with weight gain, Microsoft offered to pay for my membership at one of the nation’s best fitness clubs. Through this I discovered my love of exercise and began cycling to work. Microsoft once again reinforced this behavior and reimbursed me for supplies and tune-ups of my bike. I discovered the Microsoft Team for “Bike MS” and rode my first century at Deception Pass-Microsoft donated $17 per hour to the National MS Society for my bike riding time. When I decided to start coaching my son’s football team Microsoft paid the organization thousands of dollars for my donated time. When I was struggling with issues as a dad I discovered the “Microsoft Dads” alias and was introduced to thousands of dads with incredible advice. When I learned about the Dad’s leadership team my boss fully supported my time spent. These aliases are prevalent at Microsoft. When I shared that my wife had cancer the outpouring of love and encouragement was incredible. When I wanted to automate my home the insights were invaluable and the connections have opened a door to what could become my next profession.

Microsoft has invested tens of thousands of dollars in my own personal growth. Conferences, seminars, books, mentors, on the job learning, exposure to new ideas, and connections with the world’s brightest people. It is impossible to quantify the impact of this learning, but my life and future career will benefit immensely from it.

Thank you, Microsoft for the incredible pay and benefits. The stock options, stock, bonus pay and salary have allowed my wife to be at home to raise and homeschool our children. The financial stability allowed me to invest into what is arguably one of the finest vacation rental destinations on Lake Chelan, Marina’s Edge. The severance package I’ve received was incredibly generous . This benefit alone will certainly transform the second half of my life and give me time with my family that most people only dream of.

Thank you, Microsoft for the experiences and opportunities to live out my personal mission statement of “Adding value to people’s lives through serving others….” and accomplish more than I never dreamed possible. Here are a few of the accomplishments I’m most proud of:

• Introducing Microsoft Hardware to Six Sigma and Design for Six Sigma and building a lot of these principles into the e2e product development lifecycle, winning the team an engineering excellence award.
• Co-developing the “Customer Focused Design” methodology and applying it to hundreds of different projects
• Introducing the Xbox team to Six Sigma and the power of data through the dramatic improvements in manufacturing yield earning the team a “Gold Star” award
• Introducing Microsoft Hardware to statistical visual analysis and the power of Six Sigma through tools like JMP, ultimately isolating the root cause of the billion dollar quality problem on the original Xbox 360
  • These improvements won me the opportunity to be a keynote speaker at a number of conferences
• Forming the initial Surface Quality team to drive improvements on original surface (remember, it was a very large table device J)
• Transforming the approach to Business Intelligence in Manufacturing and Supply Chain IT ultimately doubling our customer satisfaction score
• Being a part of the Operational Excellence Team that introduced Manufacturing and Supply Chain IT to the Scaled Agile Framework and ultimately influencing the direction of Microsoft IT

Finally, thank you Microsoft for the friendships. It was literally impossible for me to identify all of the people I’ve met and known at Microsoft to include on my goodbye email. It was very interesting to me as I was clearing out my computer files. 12.5 years of work, nearly 25,000 hours of my life poured into my work (PowerPoint, Word, Excel, OneNote, etc….). All of it deleted from my hard drive. It’s almost unfathomable. All of this work gone. The only thing that endures are the relationships. None of my accomplishments during my time at Microsoft would have happened without these relationships. None of my memories would be there without these relationships. Life and work are about relationships. I used to feel guilty taking time during lunch to develop relationships or time during a 1:1 to ask “how are you doing”. Developing relationships certainly wasn’t “real work”. But then one day I realized that building the relationships are the work. Most of my career at Microsoft was about driving cultural change. People don’t want to change and resist change-unless someone they trust is encouraging them along the path of change. Trust is the foundation of all relationships both professionally and personally.

To all the people I’ve interacted with throughout the years I want to say thank you for the relationships. In all my interactions with you I tried to earn your trust. Thank you for trusting me and letting me be a part of your lives. My hope and prayer is that through these relationships I’ve fulfilled my personal mission statement of “Adding value to people’s lives through serving others that they may do the same”. If I’ve added any value to your life please take the time to do the same through the relationships you form during your time at Microsoft.

Thank you and good bye!

Damon

damon@drstoddard.org

(425) 770-2522

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