Leadership…the Steve Jobs example

By Omolara Shitu

July 2017

Content

Overview

First thoughts

Key attributes of a leader

Other attributes

Just because a leader can’t have

it all

Building disciples

Conclusion

Overview

Quite an amazing book. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson is a biography of the tech titan, and the book is

based on a series of interviews with Jobs himself as well as the most important people in his life; family

members, friends, colleagues, competitors, adversaries etc.

Its a fascinating story of the life and seemingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose

passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized about six industries. Although Jobs collaborated

with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was

published.

For the purpose of this presentation, I will be focusing on the earlier days of his story because I believe

that was the time being an effective leader mattered the most. By the late 90s onwards, Apple had

achieved considerable success and had enough money to play around with ideas.

However, I won’t be able to tell the whole story because of time constraint but I’ll summarise the main

lessons and recommend that everyone reads the book.

First thoughts

Permit to reiterate again that this is not a story about

apple or it's success. It is a story about how Steve

revolutionised the computer industry by transforming all

the stakeholders within it (employees, customers,

shareholders, competition and so on) through the

renewing of their minds and this was possible by the

leadership attributes he displayed and projected.

These attributes played a major role in achieving his

objectives.

Steve Jobs’ life was filled with lessons about innovation,

character, leadership, and values.

There are so many attributes of an effective leader, but I

believe most of these attributes are a subset of 5 core

or fundamental attributes any leader must have.

Mindset

Steve wanted to change the world. He wanted to be

different and not conform to the limitations set by men just

like any of us. He's quoted as saying he didn't want to live

a limited life.

He wasn't sure about what he wanted to do. All he knew

was that he had love for computers and he believed that

was how he was going to make a dent in the universe.

His vision for Apple was a company that turned powerful

technology into tools that were easy to use, tools that

would help people realize their dreams.

He subconsciously created an altered reality that a lot of

people referred to as "the reality distortion field", where

he was totally convinced and relentlessly dedicated to his

vision. He successfully dragged a good number of people

that worked with him into believing his vision because he

had personally embraced and internalised it.

Passion

When you have a passion for something, you will foolishly follow it to ends of the earth. Steve truly loved

what he did. The book is littered with tales of emotional tantrums and a whole lot of crying. He cried and

threw a fit about anything that may possibly alter his vision. He literally went to war with any member of the

team who tried to focus on anything that was not innovative or lacked futuristic designs.

He was always scrutinising the little details that everyone ignored because he believed that the little things

mattered.

For example, the pantone company providing the colour scheme of the apple II computer had more than two

thousand shades of beige and none of them was good enough for Steve.

It was very clear that he was deeply in love with what he was doing. He cared for computers like they were

living things.

It's hard to achieve your vision when you're not passionate about it.

Knowledge

Right from childhood, Steve could only be described as a sponge. He soaked up

anything he came across, analysed it and added it to his rich library of knowledge:

He was always asking questions about everything and gave a laser-like gaze that made

many feel like he was almost extracting information he needed directly from their very souls.

He even gave away $1million worth of shares to Xerox just to gain access into their research

labs to see what they were up to. This proved to be a fantastic decision as it gave birth to the

race to develop the graphical user interface (GUI) that revolutionised Apple and the computer

industry till date.

I believe that he did this so that he can equip himself with knowledge in order to feed the

passion for his vision.

From his adopted father's teaching about paying attention to detail and craftsmanship.

His neighbour that worked with HP that brought electronics for him to play with.

His spiritual endeavours in India.

His first entrepreneurial adventure with a device called the blue box.

His visit to various technology companies and tradeshows to ensure he was up-to-

date with technology trends. He even visited electronics showrooms just to assess the

type of materials and colours that the electronics industry was using at the time.

Creativity

The term ‘Creativity’ also reference innovation here.

Out of nothing, he and his partner Steve Wozniack, built the first apple machine,

the apple I, from computer parts they liberated from friends that worked in HP

and Atari, and they created a demand for the product.

In a world where computers had black backgrounds, Steve wanted his computers

to have white backgrounds, which gave birth to the WYSIWYG or "what you see

is what you get" phenomena in the computing world.

A key innovative element for Steve was to make things simple and unique. He

wanted technology to be so simple that everyone could be a part of the future.

He created an innovative retreat, known as THE TOP 100, which comprised of the

people he would take with him if he could only take a hundred people on a lifeboat

from a sinking ship (i.e. company). He would always ask at the retreats: "what are

the ten things we should be doing next?" Successful products such as the iPod, iPhone

and iPad were bounced around at these retreats during the conceptual stage.

He was creative with the knowledge he had acquired and the passion he had to

achieve his vision.

Talent

Steve knew he couldn't do it on his own. He would stop at nothing to

acquire the right skill-sets. He was relentless about it.

His business partner, Woznaick - He cried and begged

Wozniack's family and friends to convince him to leave HP and

join Apple full-time.

His graphics developer, Bill Atkinson - non refundable ticket

His head of marketing, Mike Markkula - selected because they

clicked

The ad agency, Regis McKenna - Jobs was fascinated by Regis'

work that he made contact but was not put through to Regis but

he kept calling every day until he got Regis' attention

He says: "hire great people because they are self-managed.

Once they know what to do they'll figure out how to do it.

What they need is a common vision".

He only hired those that connected and were wowed by what apple was

building. He made sure they were creative, knowledgeable, passionate

and shared his vision.

Other Attributes

There are other attributes that are derived from these 5 fundamental

attributes and these softer ones cannot exist without the key ones.

For instance, you can’t have dedication and drive without vision and passion,

you can’t take calculated risks if you do not have a reservoir of knowledge,

you cannot have a can do spirit if you're not creative, you can’t delegate

effectively or have an effective team if you do not have an eye for talent.

All these naturally radiated from Steve;

He had a Can do spirit - He sacked an engineer for saying a

rollerball mouse can’t be built for commercial use and

immediately hired another whose first words on resumption was:

"I can build the mouse ".

He knew how to Inspire - He asked John Sculley (a top mktg exec

at Pepsi) a simple question when he was trying to convince him to

become Apple President: "do you want to spend the rest of your

life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change

the world?"

Other Attributes (cont’d)

He knew how to motivate his team: Most people that worked with Steve

talked about how strong the force of his reality distortion field was and it

seemed to work. It was almost like they were hypnotised and could do

whatever he asked them to do.

He did things like giving his team shorter deadlines than necessary to push

them further and it worked. He infused them with abiding passion to create

ground-breaking products and a belief that they could accomplish what

seemed impossible.

He was totally dedicated to the cause and was a risk taker: When the

demand came and they needed to raise capital to start the company so

they can sell the first 50 units of apple I, Steve sold his prized possession:

a volkswagen bus and convinced Wozniack to sell his HP calculator. They

sold everything.

Once you have the first 5 attributes, the others will automatically manifest

themselves, almost like auto-pilot.

Just because a leader can’t have it all

Safe to say he also lacked some attributes.

He was very successful at satisfying his external customers at the

detriment of the internal ones.

He communicated poorly - He constantly heaved abuse on team

members if he was not happy with what they were doing.

He stole his team member’s ideas and presented them as his own. A

team member called him out in once for stealing his idea, and

Steve simply replied: "yeah, yeah, yeah, if we assume what you

saying is true, what difference would that make?"

He was highly insensitive to team members.

He had so many altercations with computer engineers all the way

up to the CEO and this led to the ‘coup’ to get rid of him in 1985.

He was so engrossed in his vision that he just didn't know how to

support his team but he was lucky that the vision was so strong it

was enough to drive the team.

May be if he cared just a little bit more, then Apple could have even

turned out a greater company.

Building Disciples… Business Leaders

Steve wasn't looking for employees, directors, shareholders or

customers (they were simply part of the business process and he

wasn't concerned with the money; the money was just a tool).

He was looking for disciples he could transform to follow him on his

journey of changing the world and making a dent in the universe.

He gave his team a reason to live, an experience, not a reason to

make money.

I believe that if you're no longer working to simply make money,

you're no longer an employee. You're a disciple, an emotional and

philosophical investor. And that was what Steve was really looking

for.

Apple just recorded sometime last year, that over 1 billion iPhones

have been sold worldwide (since inception – about 11yrs) and

there are only 7.4 billion people in the world, so I guess he has

truly left a dent in the universe.

Conclusion

It is clear that if we wish to succeed we need to ask a lot of questions and

provide answers;

Are we going to conform to the pattern of our society or be

transformed by the renewing of our minds?

The company will give the overall vision but how are we aligning to that

vision and what is the vision within our units?

What kind of leaders do we want to be at our various levels?

How passionate are we about making a difference within our teams?

Are we equipping ourselves with the knowledge to do things better or

differently?

How creative are we with challenges and how do we strive to rise

above it and grab the opportunities?

What kind of people do we have on our team and how can we get

the best from them?

How can we execute our values across the company?

The truth is, it starts with everyone here. It starts with me and YOU! If we

live our values like Steve did, we would chart the way forward and it

would be clear what we stand for and why people should follow us.

If Walter Isaacson, the author of this book wrote a brutally honest book

about us like he did Steve, what would it say? and would it inspire?

References

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

https://www.theverge.com/2011/10/27/2517152/book-review-

steve-jobs-by-walter-isaacson

http://www.hyperink.com/Steve-Jobs-Summary-Chapters-17-b247a8

https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_prev

iew_number/6917/steve-jobs

http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-biography-summary-2011-

10?IR=T

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2016/07/apple-celebrates-one-

billion-iphones/

https://www.lifewire.com/how-many-iphones-have-been-sold-

1999500

Some notes from Mr. Kazeem Shitu’s personal journal.