Could I Work With Steve Jobs?
Love him or hate
him, Steve Jobs is as recognizable a figure as other historical innovators:
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or Thomas Edison. The polarizing element about Jobs was on one hand;
he could be creative, fun, and inspiring.
On the other, he could eat employees and managers for lunch. If they would not—or could not—see the world
through his lens, he humiliated or fired them—or both. In Walter Isaacson’s 2011 biography Jobs, he detailed Steve’s return to
Apple and his approach toward management.
“His management approach was ‘Focus,’” touted Isaacson. With expletives and lawsuits, Jobs reduced
costs and streamlined processes.
As a career supply
chain manager, I found the story of Tim Cook, Apple’s current CEO,
interesting. Jobs hired Cook as senior
vice president for worldwide operations.
Upon interviewing him, Jobs said, “I knew what I wanted, and I met Tim,
and he wanted the same thing so we started to work together, and before long I
trusted him to know exactly what to do” (p. 360).
Knowing what to do in Steve Jobs’ world is no easy task. William
Simon, co-author of iCon: Steve Jobs, the
Greatest Second Act in the History of Business said, “Jobs demanded so much
from the people who worked for him. That
was part of his greatness. But he drove people too hard. … being gentle and
polite was not part of his demeanor." After creating a Fortune 500 company at Apple,
Jobs was out. Always the underdog with a
pit-bull attitude, Jobs quickly contacted some former associates and started another
computer company called NeXT. In 1985,
Jobs challenge was to outdo Apple. The
vehicle for this would be the NeXT computer, which Jobs envisioned as a
powerful new workstation for the education market (Gini & Green, 2013).
Shortly after
NeXT was created, Jobs held an offsite brainstorming session to cast vision,
establish priorities, and set strategy for the future of NeXT. “Planting seeds of a new corporate culture,”
Jobs gathered eleven colleagues together to pave the way toward a competitive
and promising future in the newly created world of personal computing.
Listening to
the conversations and the expectations, knowing what I know about Steve Jobs
and his creative genius, and recently receiving a detailed management
assessment profile (MAP) from Next Steps Research, I pondered how I would have
fit into NeXT. Could I work with Steve
Jobs? Would my leadership attributes and
personality integrate successfully at NeXt?
Would my strengths have been appreciated or would my weaknesses have caused
me to be eliminated like so many others left in the wake of Steve Jobs?
My MAP
identified both strengths and areas of caution.
The leadership attributes in the range expected for success were independence,
risk, and multi-tasking. While my
attributes seem significantly different a profile than Steve Jobs, my
characteristics could be beneficial to the initial direction of NeXT. With a strong rating of independence, the MAP
shows I would be highly self-assertive which is a must at NeXT. The offsite video proved that NeXT employees
must be forthcoming in their thoughts and opinions. No one is getting paid to sit and listen; but
rather, give insight and opinion.
My second
highest attribute, risk is what small business ventures are founded upon. Steve Jobs and the NeXT start-up employees
set-out to change the PC community.
While my risk rating favors taking business risks, they are not wholly
uncalculated or foolish but based on forecated opportunity and market
potential. Balancing the risk-reward
tension is a critical function of new businesses. At his NeXT offsite Jobs said, “We build from
the heart so that people who want to work here come and feel that desire.” Risk is never a wise endeavor without
heart. Jobs and his collegues were able
to invest the time and money into NeXT because their hearts were in it. They believed.
Lastly, my
third strongest attribute is multi-tasking.
This attribute promotes problem identification and solution and creating
new processes, services, and products. While the MAP reflected a caution with problem
solving, it did show a strength in problem identification. This would have caused me some problems
working at NeXT. Jobs wanted answers, not only problems. Upon his return to Apple in 1996, Gini &
Green (2013) said “It became routing for Jobs to convene a series of meetings
in the Apple boardroom. One by one he
would call in the head of a product team and all of its key players. Enginers
and managers had to show Jobs their existing products, from monitors to
software, and to explain their future plans. Looking them in the eye, he asked
what they would cut if they could only keep a quarter of their product line”
(p. 166).
Though my MAP
scored my leadership high in recognizing creative efforts, it scored me low in
motivation to solve problems. Standing
before Steve Jobs—a man nearly incapable of professional empathy—it would prove
disastrous to list problems without solutions.
Therefore, though I can manage many innovative tasks and creative
efforts at one time, without a strong problem-solving ability, it may have
cuased serious problems at NeXT.
Laslty, the Next
Steps Research profile defined me as a leaders who is a “highly confident,
highly extraverted, tactical leader. By
blending tools and resources to accomplish goals, the ability to negotiate
resources to achieve desired results, and an ability to delegate and unify
people in an organization, my skills and abilities would be beneficial in
standing-up a new business venture.
While I may have little technical knowledge surrounding the computer
hardware and software industry, my skills could benefit a similar business with
a different product line.
In the
off-site video, George Crow was questioning the reliability of the software
department’s promise to produce software in a certain amount of time. Steve Jobs replied, “Well, George, I can’t
change the world. What do you want me to
do? What is the solution?” Steve
Jobs found the solution and in the process, changed the world. According to Isaacson (2011), Steve Jobs
“revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music,
phones, talet computing, and digital publishing” (p. xxi). From his NeXT offsite to his Stanford commencement
address, Steve Jobs achieved his initial dream to make a “dent in the
universe.” As a student of leadership,
Steve showed me passion, innovation, drive, perfection, attention to detail,
and the limitless power of the imagination.
Steve
References:
Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs. New York, NY: Simon &
Schuster.
Gini, A., & Green, R.M. (2013).
10 virtues of outstanding leaders.
Malden, MA: John
Wiley
& Sons, Inc.
Nathan Tyler Productions. Steve
Jobs Brainstorms with NeXT Team. Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loQhufxiorM&feature=youtu.be
Young, J.S., & Simon, W.L.
(2005). iCon: Steve Jobs, the Greatest Second Act in the
History
of Business. Hoboken, NJ:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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