Embrace Secrecy

“Inside Apple” Second Chapter – Embrace Secrecy.

Apple employees know something big is afoot when the carpenters appear in their office building. New walls are quickly erected. Doors are added, windows that once were transparent are now frosted. What’s more, your badge which got you into particular areas before the new construction no longer works there. End of Story

Secrecy takes two basic forms at Apple –external and internal

Internal Secrecy
Internal secrecy as those evidenced by mysterious wall and off limits areas. Unlike Google’s famously named “Googleplex” where a visitor can roam the inner courtyards and slip into an open door as employees come and go, Apple’s buildings are airtight. Yet the link between secrecy and productivity is another way Apple challenges long held management truths and notion of transparency as a corporate virtue. For new recruits, the secret keeping begins even before they learn which of these buildings they’ll be working in. Employees are hired in so called dummy positions, roles that aren’t explained in detail until after they join the company.

Reason why Apple embraces internal secrecy
Teams are purposely kept apart, sometimes because they are unknowingly competing against one another, but more often it is the Apple way to mind one’s own business. Like a horse fitted with blinders, the Apple employee charges forward to the exclusion of the rest. Apple employees and their projects are pieces of puzzle. The snapshot of the complete puzzle is known only at the highest reaches of the organization

External Secrecy
The obvious kind of secrecy that Apple uses a way of keeping its products and practices hidden from competitors and the rest of the outside world

Reasons why Apple embraces external secrecy

To create Anticipation
The aversion to pre-release publicity is a constant tradition at Apple. They believe releasing details ahead of time would dampen the anticipation. The rationale is that when apple launches a product, if it’s been a secret up until the launch, the amount of press, coverage and buzz is hugely valuable to the company.

Existing products are not cannibalized
If a consumer knows exactly what’s coming, they may hold off on a purchase for fear it will be superseded by the next generation. This may lead to dulling of demand for the products already awaiting purchase in retail shelves or warehouses worthless.

Competitors don’t get time to respond
Announcing products before they are ready gives the competition time to respond, it raises customer expectation, and critics start bashing an Idea than an actual product.

It will be interesting to see in the coming years if Apple is able to hold on to the trait of embracing secrecy with Tim Cook on board as the CEO.

Rethink Leadership

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.