SUCCESS INSIDER: How to teach yourself to code, what you need to do to get into Harvard Business School, and how Satya Nadella turned around Microsoft
At Business Insider, we're really into transformation.
Personal, professional, cultural - just about any variety will do.
It's about gaining skills, entering the halls of power, and elevating the culture of an organization.
As of late, I'm proud to say, we've had some rather transformative stories come from our editorial team.
The best way to teach yourself to code and land a six-figure job, from 5 people who've done it
Learn to code has been the career-transitioners' mantra - or at least standard advice - for a while now. But the concrete steps for how to do it? Not exactly common knowledge.
So we dispatched writer Robin Madell to figure it out. She talked with people who had done so first hand, from more junior coders to those who had risen all the way up the tech hierarchy to CTO.
"Learning to code can sometimes be equated to climbing a mountain," explained software implementation consultant Bharat Nain. "If you look at the peak, you might shy away. It's best to take one step at a time."
Like by reading Robin's piece.
Here's exactly what it takes to get accepted into Harvard Business School, according to 5 grads and the managing director of admissions
Harvard Business School (HBS) is one of the most prestigious institutions in the world.
About 10,000 people apply every year, but only 11% are accepted.
So we spoke with gatekeepers and grads alike - uncovering some telling detail about how to get in. Surprisingly, it has a lot to do with souls.
"At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, the essays are the windows into your soul," explained Patrick Mullane, the executive director of Harvard Business School Online and an HBS graduate.
"They are a chance to put a personality around the numbers that will make up much of an application," he said. "It's not enough to be a great writer - although that's essential. An applicant must also be able to communicate, in a relatively short amount of space, something that makes them human."
How Satya Nadella's leadership style catapulted Microsoft to a trillion-dollar valuation - and what you can learn from it
Microsoft has got to be one of the most fascinating organizations we cover. In the 1990s, it was beyond gigantic, pushing Bill Gates into "richest living human" territory. But rolling into the new century, the giant started to lumber - less relevant, less flush, less gigantic.
Enter: Satya Nadella. Formerly head of Microsoft's cloud and enterprise group, he became CEO just five years ago. Now, Microsoft has eclipsed a trillion dollar valuation.
The key, as our reporter Sherin Shibu writes, is leadership driving culture change. Particularly, Nadella has scaled growth mindset (a psychological insight that came from studying why some kids relish challenges) across the 130,000 person organization. The key: When the riddle-loving children encountered a problem they didn't understand, they didn't think they were failing. They thought they were learning.