Trust
My niece and nephew love playing Minecraft. Whenever they visit, the first thing they ask is if we can play together. With my nephew we'll explore abandoned mine shafts, avoid the spider spawner, and I'll dump a bucket of water on myself whenever he thinks it’s hilarious to light me on fire. With my niece, we'll build out our purple house, with purple windows, and a purple bridge. The yard will be filled with exotic animals and art will cover every inch of every wall. When it's time to go, the conversation goes something like this…
Yes, we can play again next time.
Yes, I promise to fill in the windows of your castle for you.
Yes, I'll use the straight glass, not the glass cubes. They're called glass panes.
Yes, I'll use the glass panes.
My niece and nephew, like 600 million others, are obsessed with the never-ending creative world of Minecraft. As of 2017, when Satya Nadella published his book Hit Refresh, it was one of the bestselling games of all time on the PC, Xbox, and mobile. Today, it still is, surpassing 200 million in sales which is an additional 150 million since it was purchased by Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014. What I found interesting about this transaction is that according to Satya Nadella, the decision to purchase Minecraft was not a unanimous one:
"Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, who were still on board when the deal was presented, later laughed and said they had initially scratched their heads, failing to understand the wisdom of the move. Now we all get it."
Minecraft was a technology move that Gates and Ballmer did not quite understand. I do not know what made them question it. Did they not think video games were a good investment? Did they question the interface because it was different from everything else they knew to be successful? Whatever it was, there was something about it that made them scratch their head. And yet, despite their hesitation and doubt, Microsoft still acquired Minecraft.
Someone on the Microsoft team made the case for Minecraft, and even though the leaders may not have fully understood it, they still supported it. The deal was presented. They didn't get it. But they said yes anyway.
In the quickly changing world of technology it can be difficult to keep up; to know when to hold 'em, and when to fold 'em. With AI on the rise, and the world moving faster than it ever has before, we may run into the tendency to resist trying something different. Change is scary, and changing to things we don't understand is even scarier, but what I like about this story is that it highlights the importance of working with a team you can trust.
What is your team like? What about the people you surround yourself with every day? Do you trust them? If you don't, ask yourself why and take steps to mend that relationship. Life is far too complex to rely on ourselves to always know what to do, so make sure you trust the people in your room enough to be able to step back and say I don’t get it, but go for it. You got this.
