Digital Leadership

It is a sad day for the world when a visionary like Steve Jobs is no longer walking among us. It truly reminds all of us how

short and precious life is. Just like there will never be another Socrates, Wayne Gretzky, Winston Churchill, or Gandhi, there will never be another Steve Jobs. While we can never become Steve Jobs, nor should we strive to be (follow your heart). What we can do is understand what is the greatness of Steve Jobs and, where applicable, apply these principals to help us develop as leaders.

Simplify

Steve Jobs demanded that the iPod not have any buttons on it; including an on/off switch. This seemed implausible for the engineers working on the project, but Jobs wouldn’t bend. The engineers were pushed to their limits and as a result the scroll wheel was inspired. Jobs indicates “that’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

The power of “NO”

Jobs is just as proud of the many products he killed over the years as the ones that were monumental successes. At one point he worked hard on a device similar to the Palm Pilot, but appropriately killed it to focus on the cell phone market. What resulted was the iPod and iPhone.

Money is overvalued

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t’ matter to me…Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful..that’s what matters to me.”

Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it. [Fortune, November 9, 1998]

It’s not what you say; it’s how you say it

Jobs keynotes and product launches spellbound audiences. The missing “it” factor is palpable when he’s not on stage.

Not all products under Jobs were the most cutting edge on the market, however consumers perceived them to be. Part of this was Jobs overzealous demand of secrecy around products. This secrecy helped feed consumers desires for the product once they were revealed.

That is the critical point – perception becomes reality. Part of Jobs’ success was based on the notion that “Your customers dream of a happier and better life. Don’t move products. Instead, enrich lives.”

Recognize Good Ideas

Jobs and Apple did not create the computer mouse, podcasting or the touch screen, but they recognized their value and integrated these innovations into their products.

Shun the Majority

Jobs actions epitomized the mantra of if the majority was always right than we’d all be rich. Like Henry Ford before him who indicated “If I asked the public what they wanted they would say a faster horse,” Jobs typically eschewed focus groups and gave the public what he thought they needed. This worked the majority of the time, when it didn’t it was a chance for him to fail forward into the next project taking the lessons with him.

“Here’s to the crazy one, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Eat Your Own Lunch

There is a saying in Silicon Valley that you need to eat your own lunch before someone else does.  Jobs had the conviction to do this with the introduction of the iPhone, knowing full well it would and did cannibalize the sales of the flagship iPod. Letting go of the familiar and embracing the unknown is a real test of leadership.

Strive for perfection

The night before the opening of the first Apple store, jobs didn’t like the look of the tiles so he had them all ripped up and replaced. Right before the iPod launch Jobs also had all the headphone jacks replaced so that they were more “clicky.”

Small Teams

Jobs didn’t want his iPhone team to be muddle with pre-conceived notions around the cell phone market and had the team placed in a separate building. While this rubbed some employees the wrong way for not being selected, the results are irrefutable.

The original Macintosh team had 100 members. Whenever it reached 101 members they would have to reshuffle and remove someone from the team. Jobs’ belief was that he could only remember 100 names. [Source: Leaner Kahney, The 10 Commandments of Steve,” Newsweek, page 35, September, 2011]

Follow Your Heart

“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 arrow, I know I need to change something.” It’s sad to think that today was Jobs’ last day, at the young age of 56. But he truly led a life of following his heart.

God Bless.

Funny 30 sec video on Steve Jobs becoming President. Click to play and enjoy! – Erik Qualman

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO. He will remain as Chairman of the Board. Tim Cook is Apple’s new CEO. Jobs, 56, submitted his resignation to the Apple board of directors on Wednesday. Tim Cook is tabbed as his replacement.  In a letter announcing his resignation, Jobs asked to remain chairman of the board and an Apple employee.

“I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I

Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple on August 24, 2011

would be the first to let you know,” Jobs wrote. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”

While analysts indicate this shouldn’t affect Apple in the short term, let me stress short term. It’s my belief that someone like Steve Jobs isn’t someone you can replace. Visionaries like Jobs only come along so often. Expect the long term to be a much more difficult road for Apple. We knew the day was coming soon when Jobs would step down, yet it is something maybe you can never prepare for. The silver lining is that he will remain on as Chairman so at least his vision will be there for a little more time.

I pull from Steve Jobs keynote to Stanford seniors in 2005, because I feel it catches the moment and epitomizes the icon that is Jobs. Jobs career and contribution to society will be talked about just like we talk about Rockefeller & Walt Disney.

Steve Jobs gave similar advice to graduating Stanford students:

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. It wasn’t all romantic: I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5 cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it.

And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed.

Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

Steve Jobs Resigns on his own terms: At the age of 30 Steve Jobs was asked to leave Apple. This time at 56 Jobs resigns on his own terms.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac.

It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking back ten years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking back. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

I was lucky I found what I loved to do early in life…

… This (cancer diagnosis) was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful, but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.

And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.

Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited; so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And, most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Then somehow know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Related Articles: Steve Jobs Infographic, 15 Things You Didn’t Know About Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs resigns!

It was tough to see Steve Jobs resign as CEO from Apple. The below is a quick infographic from onlineschools.org on 15 things you may not have known about Steve Jobs.

Via: Online Schools

Hats off to Ellie Koning for a great infographic design.