When Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs first came out,
executives and business leaders all over the world tried to emulate the
man and his management style. They tried to clone everything from the
way he presented to his relentless attention to detail. They even bought
copies of the book for their management teams to study.
Ever since I’ve been telling people it doesn’t work that way. You
simply can’t copy and paste talent and wisdom. It comes from inside and
from experience, or not at all.
Lei Jun, CEO of Chinese smartphone startup Xiaomi was such a fan of
Jobs he emulates the iconic leader right down to the black shirt and
jeans and “one last thing” tease during product announcements. The New
York Times called him a Steve Jobs knockoff. Not surprisingly, so are
Xiaomi’s products.
While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, it’s not exactly the best way to run a company. As Apple’s (AAPL) former communications veep Allison Johnson
put it, “The thing that Steve did better than anyone else is, he was
his authentic self,” she told an audience of entrepreneurs, “We don’t
need more Apples. We need more you.”
Indeed, successful executives and business leaders are the ones that
strive to become the best version of themselves, not a clone of someone
else. Likewise, company cultures should reflect their own true DNA,
assuming it’s successful.
That said, there are a number of principles that Jobs infused into
Apple’s culture that I think are somewhat fundamental to innovative
companies and definitely worth understanding. So learn but don’t
replicate, as the first philosophy explains quite clearly.
Build a culture that thinks different.
Adherence to the status quo and groupthink are the silent killers of
companies and careers. If the success of Silicon Valley innovators like
Intel and Apple has taught us anything, it’s that common wisdom – how
things are done and how they should be done – should be challenged at
every turn.
Once you have a unique culture that works, you want to use it as a
model for new-hires, teach it to newcomers, and reinforce that behavior
throughout the organization, from top to bottom.
As Tim Cook said in a recent Fast Company
interview, everything can change but the core values. He also said Jobs
instilled “this nonacceptance of the status quo” through his actions
more than his words, an interesting counterpoint to today’s overemphasis
on leadership communication.
interview, everything can change but the core values. He also said Jobs
instilled “this nonacceptance of the status quo” through his actions
more than his words, an interesting counterpoint to today’s overemphasis
on leadership communication.
Make a dent in the universe.
We all get inspiration from role models and ideas from mentors, but
at some point each of us has to sort of leave the nest and make our own
mark on the world. Jobs famously told the first Macintosh team that they
were there to “make a dent in the universe,” which of course they did.
That belief, that each of us has the power to change the world, was
central to the way Jobs lived and a core philosophy he instilled in
Apple’s culture. Clearly, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Own the customer experience.
Long ago corporate executives learned to focus on their core
competencies and outsource the rest. That wholesale abandonment of
vertical integration led to widespread horizontal specialization that’s
most evident in the personal computer and Google Android ecosystems.
Apple’s core product differentiation is that it alone owns the entire
user experience by taking complete responsibility for the software,
hardware and services. Even the purchasing and customer service
experience. Being vertical is “the magic of Apple,” Cook says, ”Without
collaboration, you get a Windows product.”
Small teams are the best innovators.
Our society sees too much in black and white terms. On one end of the
spectrum you have iconic leaders like Jobs while on the other you have
enormous social collectives. We give both extremes far too much credit.
Life happens in shades of gray. When it comes to innovation, the optimal
configuration lies somewhere in between.
Cook says Jobs was not the extreme micromanager he was made out to
be, that one of his greatest strengths was as a teacher. What he did was
“build a culture and pick a great team” so each of those leaders would
do the same with their staffs. That’s how Apple has so effectively
replicated its success as the company scaled.
Apple leverages the collaborative and innovative power of small teams.
Make the best, not the most.
Cook calls the technology industry’s obsession with having the most
clicks, active users, and unit sales “almost a disease.” Jobs, however,
wasn’t focused on making the most but on making the absolute best
products. That core philosophy permeates the company and everything it
does. It explains why Apple makes so few products.
That’s also how the company has the discipline to make bold decisions
like changing connectors and storage media, decisions that are not
necessarily popular at the time. Cook says, “You have to be willing to
lose sight of the shore and go.” He also says Microsoft’s problem is
that it doesn’t “walk away from legacy stuff.” He’s absolutely right,
that’s why the PC has always suffered from complexity and security
issues.
More than anything, those five core principles made Steve Jobs and
Apple the game-changing innovators they became. And while you can’t
replicate what they did or change the world exactly as they did, these
insights can play a role in building a career and a company that is as
uniquely and genuinely yours
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