Steve Jobs. Saint?

Working this week in Manila with a wonderful group of young Filipino leader/managers, I’ve been asked several times why I have not written about Steve Jobs since his death one month ago.

I think the truth is that I have been wrestling internally with a couple of issues.

On the one hand, there’s no doubt that, particularly since his return second time around to the company he founded, Apple’s story has been one of continuous and spectacular success. And he has written and spoken inspiringly.

So what’s the problem?

Well, for one thing it’s clear that the great successes of the company were all built on the innovations of others – from the laptop to the iPad. And all the other blockbusters in between. Picking up other people’s inventions and improving them for the customer is good, but really doesn’t make Jobs comparable with, say, Thomas Edison, who was the founding father of so many of the world-changing innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

And then there’s the man who has been described as “Jobs the Tyrant”. Years ago I was told that it was not a good idea for an Apple staffer to get into an elevator with Steve. Apparently there was a good chance that you might emerge unemployed. I guess that story is more emblematic than literally true.

And yet, since then I have continuously heard and read about the tantrums and tirades, the disrespectful ways that colleagues could be treated.

No doubt the upside to all this was a sense within the organisation of what people call “creative tension” - tension which can drive performance. At least in the short run.

Jobs’s biographer, Walter Isaacson, said recently: “In the end, you have to judge him on the outcome.” Right now, the Apple juggernaut rolls on, apparently unstoppable.

Only time will tell what the outcome will be now that he is gone. Will enhancing the innovations of others be sufficient? And how will the climate change in Apple now that he no longer visits the building?

Maybe in future I should include Apple in Brand Renovation masterclasses that I give. For, in my mind, the company is a superb “renovator”, rather than being a real innovator.

By the way, are you coming along on Tuesday in Manila?

Manila Masterclass with Roger Neill, 8 November 2011

CEOs and innovation training

A recent study by PwC/Accenture shows that globally 80% of CEOs believe that innovation will drive efficiencies and lead to competitive advantage.

Percentages very close to this come up in most surveys of top managers, time after time.

The problem of course remains that the majority of CEOs themselves have very limited training or hands-on experience in the field of innovation. Most of them attended business school and grew through the ranks at a time when specialised training was not widely available, and many have not actively worked in an innovation function.

It would perhaps be OK if several of them recognised this and went about fixing it. But in my experience that very rarely happens.

So classic problems remain within organisations as barriers to successful innovation – problems not only of climate and culture and inappropriate personal behaviour, but also the belief that having a standardised innovation process is the primary route to glory.

Many organisations would benefit from an honest, root and branch review of their innovation capabilities, coupled with the open-mindedness to deal with whatever issues emerge, starting with the CEOs themselves.

Throughout my time in innovation, I’ve found that CEOs think that innovation training is important, but only for THEM, not for ME.

Making plans

I used to be a great believer in making plans. I would sit at my desk working out strategy and tactics, exactly who would do what and when. What would be the outcomes. All that with tons of supporting data.

Gradually I came to realise that other people in my team simply didn’t have the commitment to the plan that I did. And, at the same time, the situation kept changing at a dizzying pace – sometimes in ways that I’d predicted in the original plan, but more often than not in ways that were completely unpredictable.

So it was a revelation some twenty years ago to discover not only that co-created plans have a much greater chance of being realised, with everyone in the team equally invested in them, but also that planning itself is a very overrated activity.

What’s most important, I’ve found, is that everyone has a grasp on the goal and on the direction of travel. Then, if you have the right people, in the right climate, they will take care of the rest, behaving as far as possible like entrepreneurs, open to possibility each day.

As John Lennon put it in his song, “Beautiful Boy”:

“Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt3IOdDE5iA

Work hard and be nice to people

After a meeting in Fitzrovia, I dropped in to see my friend, Rebecca Hossack, at her Art Gallery in Charlotte Street.

She was in a meeting, said a cheery hello, and encouraged me to go to see the Alasdair Wallace exhibition at her other gallery in Conway Street, right by the Post Office Tower.

Rebecca came to an innovation masterclass I ran a while back – and was full of excitement then about her new venue. It certainly is the perfect gallery space, with good proportions and excellent natural light. And with a really positive climate. Ideal for Mr Wallace’s fine paintings.

Being an inquisitive soul, I took a look in the back office. Above the heads of two gallery staffers was this sign, in Rebecca’s handwriting, in large blue neon: WORK HARD AND BE NICE TO PEOPLE.

Well, it’s not a vision or mission statement. And it’s not really a statement of values or beliefs. So what is it?

In a way, it’s a mantra. A way of life. And it so reflects Rebecca and her galleries.

The line existed previously in Anthony Burrell’s wonderful woodblock poster (above). Was it he who originally coined the phrase?

I think it can be at the heart of all organisations that have customers and suppliers and colleagues. So that would be all organisations.

Easy to say. Harder to do. Please don’t adopt it unless you can live by it…

THE SUN DOES NOT MOVE

One of the earliest major art exhibitions that I went to in London was of Leonardo da Vinci’s extraordinary drawings from the royal collection. It was at the recently opened Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace and the year was 1969. I have the modest catalogue (nothing like today’s glossy doorstops) open in front of me now.

I don’t think that I’d previously taken in the amazing range of Leonardo’s interests, inventions and speculations. Human anatomy, engineering, animals and plants, dragons and other beasties, weapons, astronomy, not to mention a multitude of studies for his major paintings – continuously recorded both in a series of notebooks and on loose sheets.

Buried in one of Leonardo’s notebooks, amongst a series of mathematical calculations, is the single line, written in large letters: “IL SOLE NO SI MUOVE” – “THE SUN DOES NOT MOVE”.

The implication of the observation is clear. The sun does not revolve around the earth, rather the earth revolves around the sun. He wrote the line a whole century before the great astronomical breakthroughs of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler.

Perhaps Leonardo did no more with his revolutionary thought, leaving it buried in the notebook, not sharing it with anyone, because he feared the consequences. After all, when Galileo started to disseminate this discovery in 1615, he was tried for heresy.

Self-censorship (springing from fear of the consequences of sharing an unusual idea with senior management) is one of the major reasons that breakthrough innovations are stillborn. That is why the creation by management at all levels of a climate of openness, of speculation, of absurdity even, is so important.

How is it in your workplace?