“Riding the Sh*thead-Hero Rollercoaster”
Six inspiring insights from the management style and personal philosophy of Steve Jobs
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| Steve Jobs at the launch of the MacBook Air |
Steve Jobs defied the typical style of management espoused
in textbooks and taught in business schools throughout the world: he was known
to rant and throw tantrums, plus he was egotistical and drove people hard in an
uncompromising and confrontational way. He
was not afraid to give a public dressing down to a manager who he felt had
failed to deliver and, sometimes - as his biography makes clear - he would also
openly weep about something that he cared passionately about.
If either you or I ever behaved in that way, or we had adopted a style of management similar to that of Jobs, you can guarantee that our tenure in the role would not last long before we were shown the door by both an exasperated employer and some delighted colleagues. Jobs, however, had a particular vision and he once said that those people who are just crazy enough to believe that they can change the world, are usually the ones that actually do. It was his ‘crazy’ vision that turned Apple into one of the world’s most valuable corporations, by pursuing his passion for what he did and expecting the same level of drive and commitment from those around him. When he died he was hailed as a genius and visionary, and there was a genuine outpouring of grief at his early demise. He was, nevertheless, a controversial figure and working with him was described by colleagues as ‘riding the shithead-hero rollercoaster’: signifying the daily perils of either being in Steve’s good books, or out of favour and at risk of being the target for one of his legendary tantrums.
If either you or I ever behaved in that way, or we had adopted a style of management similar to that of Jobs, you can guarantee that our tenure in the role would not last long before we were shown the door by both an exasperated employer and some delighted colleagues. Jobs, however, had a particular vision and he once said that those people who are just crazy enough to believe that they can change the world, are usually the ones that actually do. It was his ‘crazy’ vision that turned Apple into one of the world’s most valuable corporations, by pursuing his passion for what he did and expecting the same level of drive and commitment from those around him. When he died he was hailed as a genius and visionary, and there was a genuine outpouring of grief at his early demise. He was, nevertheless, a controversial figure and working with him was described by colleagues as ‘riding the shithead-hero rollercoaster’: signifying the daily perils of either being in Steve’s good books, or out of favour and at risk of being the target for one of his legendary tantrums.
There is a lot that could be written about Jobs in terms of
both his management style and his personal philosophy, but I want to pick just
three for each.
Management Style
1)
A belief
in teamwork. Jobs once said in interview that his model for business was
the Beatles. He believed that the four
band members balanced each other out and that together the total was greater
than the sum of the parts. They were a collection of egos and individual
talents, but together they kept each other’s negative tendencies in check. That’s
how he saw business and he believed that great things in business are never
done by one person, they are done by a team of people. Probably the time in his life that this held most
true was in the development of the Mac. Jobs was not unaware that he could be
difficult to live with, which is why he relied on the talents of a good team
around him in order to challenge him and help drive the success of the business
forward.
2)
Manage
the ‘top line’. Jobs declared that what was important was to manage the ‘top
line’ - by which he meant the business strategy, the people, and your products
- and the bottom line will follow. By focussing on what the business does best and doing it
well, then the organisation should be able to deliver the expected
profits. Rather than on focusing too
much on the bottom line, at the expense of the fundamental and core activities
of the business. This is a sobering
lesson for many businesses overly obsessed by the need to show the City or Wall
Street consistent quarterly returns, rather than focusing on strategy, people
and products.
3)
Trusting
your team to deliver. Despite Jobs’ own egotism he was a firm believer in
the need for selecting a strong team and this is why he gathered around him
such stellar talents as his chief designer, Johnathan Ives. For Jobs, teamwork was about trusting the
other members to deliver, without watching them all the time, but believing
that they are going to come through with their parts, when needed. The lesson here is to ensure that you gather
around you a team that you can trust to share your mission and who do not need
to be supervised and overseen on a regular basis.
Personal Philosophy
Finally, three insights from his personal philosophy:
1)
Find what
you love. When Jobs delivered the commencement speech to the students of
Stanford University, he famously exhorted them to find what they love,
declaring it to be ‘as true for work as it is for your lovers’. He urged them
not to settle for anything less and implored them that they would know when
they find it. He went on to say that he remembered a quote that had inspired
him, ““If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most
certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the
past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If
today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do
today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days
in a row, I know I need to change something.”[i]
Jobs urged an uncompromising focus on what you love the most and not to settle
for anything less than what you love to do.
2)
Passion.
People who are crazy enough to believe they can change the world, are the ones
that actually do. This point naturally stems from the previous one. Whilst Jobs
might have been many things, he certainly didn't lack passion for what he did, in the products that he delivered and for the various successful businesses that
he built. Both Apple and Pixar were built upon his passion and commitment.
3)
“Good
artists copy, great artists steal.” In
giving this quote from the artist Pablo Picasso, Jobs was acknowledging that
there is nothing new under the Sun and that many of the things that you do, may
have been done by someone else at some time before you. This goes for business, just as much as your
personal life – the iPod was not new, instead it applied design flair to
existing MP3 player technology. To
achieve this end, he declared the need to ‘expose yourself to the best things
that humans have done and then bring those things into what you are doing’ –
something that he certainly achieved, bringing artistic influences into his
styling and design.
Finally, the words he used to bring his commencement speech
to a close to the assembled Stanford graduates, are probably the most succinct encapsulation
of his personal philosophy:
“Stay hungry, stay foolish.”
Written by Will Trevor, Founder and Training Consultant at Windsor Training
Email: will.trevor@windsortraining.net
Picture Credit: "SteveJobsMacbookAir" by Matthew YoheOriginal uploader was Matt Yohe at en.wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:Sfan00_IMG using CommonsHelper.(Original text : self-made). Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SteveJobsMacbookAir.JPG#mediaviewer/File:SteveJobsMacbookAir.JPG
[i] Quote
from Steve Jobs commencement speech to Stanford University students in 2005. Available
online at: http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eimh45ehjl/steve-jobs-live-each-day-as-if-it-was-your-last/.
Accessed, August 1st, 2014
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