People and Technology - MicroStrategy Inc.

Mission matters too.

"The grander and more noble the mission," says Saylor, "the more room you have to grow and the more support you'll have along the way. No government is going to break up a company that's trying to cure cancer. People will give it a lot more leeway."

What you don't know will hurt you.

The folks at MicroStrategy pride themselves on being a transparent organization. This transparency offers a deeper understanding of problems that arise in the workplace.

Recently, employees complained to Bansal that a colleague's performance wasn't up to par. While some were ready to fire that person, Bansal decided to dig around the intranet to learn more about the employee's background. "The poor performance resulted from the job, which did not match that person's background," he explains. "So we transferred the employee to a more suitable position. If you have a bureaucracy, you don't get that sort of information."