The Book I am reading is “Inside Apple” - by Adam Lashinsky
The secrets Behind the Past and Future Success of Steve Job’s Iconic Brand
In the first Chapter- Rethink Leadership. Adam frames Steve as a leader using countless examples to drill home the image of Steve as a narcissistic, micro managing, God like leader. Steve led in a way that was in contrast to conventional wisdom. Culture at Apple was consistent with the traits and style of its dominating leader. It was secretive, not transparent. It was micro managing not empowering. It was in most ways a very large start-up and that is the culture that Steve wanted it to be. But despite all these things, the current mindset of thinking would cause a business to derail, Steve and the Apple train continually picked up steam and success by almost all accounts. With this as the back drop several questions come to mind that needs to be explored.
Work Culture
A company is the reflection of its leader’s actions and behaviours. Steve was a micromanager who reviews every single ad, every product design, every outbound communication, his hand is on everything and if he doesn’t like it, he changes it and he wins every time. That is not the leadership style of most managers, we tend to delegate more, we think hire the right people and let them do their job. But is that right? Should they be more balanced in their approach? Is some of the question that arises after reading the book.
Accountability
Adam captures Steve theory of accountability crisply in a janitor story he shares that Steve shares with and reminds all employees once they reach a certain level of the organization. The basic tenant on the story is that when you are a janitor and you can’t access an office to clear the trash because your key no longer works, that is an acceptable answer with an easy solution. Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO reasons stops mattering and that level is senior executive. Like an invoking Yoda from star wars Jobs would tell the VP: “Do or do not. There is no try” Apple didn’t disappoint its customers, executives would not disappoint Steve.
Focus
Adam tells the story of life at Apple leading up the launch of the iPhone. During this time the massive organization concentrated all of its best on a single product. Think about the confidence and belief required to make that call in an organization. All your bread and butter products that make you what you are and all the countless number of customers behind those products are going to be ‘risked’ to put almost all of your eggs in the basket of a product that has no equivalent, no real market research to speak of, no pivots, no A/B testing, just Steve’s belief that it was the right product at the right time.
It will take years, but eventually the world will learn if Steve Jobs was Apple – or if he succeeded in building a complex organism strong enough to survive his death.
