Your workplace, circa 2000. Employee: “I’ve got an idea for an entertainment device that can hold an entire music collection. It is beautifully designed, fits in your shirt pocket and can retail for under $500. What do you think?”
Chief: “We appreciate your input Steve, but it doesn’t quite synergise with our six-month strategic outcomes moving forward”. What would have happened if, ten years ago, someone came up with the idea for the iPod in your workplace?
Would it have got up? Would it even have got past the initial pitch? And if it did get considered for development, would the original, brilliantly simple concept have ended up as the final product, or would something like this have happened …
Chief 1: “Why is it all white? Does it need to be white? How about green?”
Chief 2: “Blue’s very in at the moment.”
Chief 3: “My wife loves pink.”
Chief 4: “Actually orange is quite a bold colour.”
Chief 1: “Ok, why don’t we mix everyone’s favourite colours together?”
Everyone: “Yes!”
Chief 2: “Ok, but I’m not sure about this wheel thing. Most music players have more buttons.”
Chief 1: “You’re right. Let’s cut the wheel in half and add some buttons.”
Chief 3: “Actually, let’s add a whole keyboard.”
Chief 1: “Brilliant!”
Chief 3: “One other thing, our research shows that 100% of the target market still uses CDs.”
Chief 2: “Really? Well why are they going to want this mp3 thing?”
Chief 3: “I don’t know. All of our competitors products can play CDs.”
Chief 1: “Ok, let’s add a CD player to it, just to be sure.”
Later …
Chief 1: “So how’s it looking?”
Employee: “Here it is, with your feedback taken on board. It’s ugly, shit-brown and the size of a small suitcase.”
Chief 1: “Great. Let’s give it a go!”
I don’t know exactly how the iPod came into being, but I’m pretty certain it wasn’t like that. Of all the things that have been written about Steve Jobs since he died – his creative genius, his passion, his dedication, his love for his family - what stands out most to me is that he was a bit of a prick to work with.
He was relentless, stubborn and single-minded. He pursued perfection ruthlessly. He hunted down great ideas and he heaped shit on the bad ones. He was quite possibly arrogant, certainly uncompromising.
This darker side of Steve Jobs doesn’t fit neatly into the faultless, all-conquering-hero persona some would want for him – you didn’t hear Barack Obama lamenting the loss of “a visionary, a loving family man and a self-righteous pain in the arse”.
But this side of Steve Jobs may have been just as significant as the ‘creative genius’ bit when it came to shaping the success of Apple. He didn’t settle for second best and he didn’t modify great ideas just to keep people happy. When he had a vision for a new product, he had it created to perfectly reflect that vision.
Not every company has a Steve Jobs. But some probably do and don’t realise. How many Steve Jobs-style ideas get killed or maimed because they don’t fit in with the current strategy, because they are not put forward at the ‘right’ time, because they will mess up short-term sales targets or because they are bastardised in the name of group consensus or ‘stakeholder buy-in’?
A committee would never have come up with the idea for an iPod. A focus group would never have recommended the development of the original Macintosh personal computer. Sometimes, great ideas need to be staunchly promoted and ruthlessly protected. That’s not always popular.
What people loved most about Steve Jobs – if the wave of Twitter and blog tributes is anything to go by - was his dogged pursuit of excellence and his ability to back his intuition and ignore the naysayers. The question is, how equipped are most companies to deal with this type of personality?
Sure, it’s easier to get your ideas implemented when you run the place, as Steve Jobs did. But don’t forget that he was pushed out of Apple once – for being difficult to work with, combative and single-minded. What might Apple have achieved in the 90s if Steve Jobs was there?
So if there’s a moody, arrogant, single-minded perfectionist at your work, listen to their ideas and let them have their say; they might just be the next Steve Jobs*
*Disclaimer: They might not be. It’s possible they are just a prick.
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