The Creative Coasts blogspot is Savannahs sounding board for local thinkers, innovators, wanderers and wonderers. Guest bloggers share their thoughts, opinions and creative noodling from all over the map. This weeks blog is from yours truly, Jake Hodesh, chief goat herder for The Creative Coast. Read on to see what I’ve been reading on……
I recently finished Walter Isaacsons book on Steve Jobs. For those of you who have slept through the last three-and-a-half decades, Steve Jobs co-founded one of the worlds most impressive corporations, Apple.
Apple is the amazing company that birthed the Macintosh computer, iPod, iPad, iPhone, iTunes and a host of other devices, programs, and accessories that have become the heartbeat of hip.
Walter Isaacson, no slouch himself, is a biographer, and the president and CEO of the Aspen Institute. He has explored the lives and written about several prominent individuals, including Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein.
Jobs became Isaacsons most recent foil, and their relationship spawned a nearly 600-page tome that held my attention on countless flights and poolside afternoons during my winter holiday.
Isaacson conducted more than 40 interviews with Jobs over the course of two years. He was given unparalleled access into Steve Jobs world, interviewing more than 100 of Jobs friends, family members, cohorts, coworkers, enemies, and business partners.
The book was released a few weeks after Jobs death, and has been vigorously consumed and talked about for the past few months. After reading the book cover to cover, I cant shake from my mind a few noteworthy points about Jobs life:
- Jobs was obsessive and dedicated to work above all else.
- Products, specifically their design, became his life blood.
- Jobs was highly critical of his co-workers and his employees. His criticism was vocalized daily and he was brutally honest, to a fault.
- Jobs co-founded Apple, was ousted, and returned to the company several years later to resurrect the company from near complete failure.
- He was manic about healthy eating.
- He cried a lot.
- He owned a Gulfstream.
- He was adopted.
- He graduated high school but never finished college.
- He died as one of the largest individual shareholders of Disney.
- He nearly singled handedly changed the way that we consume music, digital media, books, movies, television, internet, and something as simple as talking on the phone.
- He is credited with co-launching Pixar, and helping to jump-start the computer-aided animation industry as we know it today. A Bugs Life? Jobs. Toy Story? Jobs. Monsters Inc.? Jobs. Finding Nemo? Jobs.
- He was so fanatical about the appearance of products for which he was responsible that he was rarely able to pick furniture for his homes, and he often lived in large, beautiful homes that sat starkly empty, void of furnishings.
Jobs was a once in a lifetime tycoon, deserving of a 600-page biography. He was a man that deserves a place among our most hallowed…Edison, Franklin, Rockefeller, Roosevelt, Carnegie…. you get it.
What can we learn from a man who did so much to transform the way we compute?
- Believe in yourself because no one else will. If you care enough about something, fight for it.
- The details (design) are where the magic happens.
- Being honest with (critical of) our friends, family, and co-workers might be hurtful, but in the end it is always beneficial.
- Dont be afraid to cry.
- Health trumps all.
Reading this life story at the end of 2011 was quasi-therapeutic for me. I will take the most intense aspects of this mans life and learn from them. I will take Jobs’ most interesting traits and try to infuse those into my daily life.
My New Years resolution for 2012 is to further embrace one of Jobs many mantras:
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
Jake
I disagree about being hurtful. I’ve worked for bosses who were Jobs-level jerks and hyper-critical and people often say that’s the thing that made them successful. It never is. Those people are successful in spite of being inconsiderate asses. Their other talents are enough to compensate for being harsh and hyper-critical. The worst lesson to take from the Jobs biography is that to succeed we have to be merciless about other peoples’ feelings.
You can be honest and critical without being hurtful or callous. It takes effort, but it always gets paid back through better employee morale and productivity.
Wow Kevin, I was going to make just about the exact same comment but I read yours and totally agree with your response. Too many people now are learning about the a-hole “celebrity” boss or mogul and feel “I have to be an a-hole to make it” – but if you don’t have any real talent you’ll just be a talentless a-hole that no one likes to deal with!
Great topic all the way around.
Joe
Good post. I agree with Kevin and Joe and wholeheartedly believe that being critical for critical’s sake is a bad managerial (or parenting) tactic, though I don’t think Jake was necessarily endorsing being an asshole. Honest feedback is invaluable but it’s worth paying careful attention to the delivery, because delivery is everything. Berating employees and telling them their work is “sh*t” like Jobs often did may have insulated him from feeling anything (he was a pretty sensitive dude) and instilled a general sense of fear in his employees when dealing with him, but I doubt his delivery itself helped create better products. I’m sure it created a sizable amount of collateral damage in terms of individual people’s lives and careers.
I do wonder however if his sociopath-esque total lack of empathy was somehow efficient in terms of getting the “A players” lined up at Apple and producing exceptional results within a relatively short period of time. I’m almost finished with the book and was struck by (among other things) his ruthless honesty and pruning of both his workforce and products. It may not have made him popular, but I wonder if it perhaps enabled him to assemble a group of exceptionally talented people and create, iterate and market/sell some amazing things with a certain level of efficacy. (Though not without some really bad karma.)
At the end of the day, I don’t think anyone other than Steve Jobs could have made Apple what it is today and part of the road to getting them there was his merciless adherence to the “truth” as he saw it and the power of his personality to make others get on board or get out of the way.
Great discussion.
I think I am ok with Jobs criticism… I think his delivery at times was wrong.
Good discussion though.
And yes… I agree with you Fitz that no one other than Jobs could have done what he did…
Visionary? For sure. Freak of nature. Yes.
Jake
I received this book as a gift from my brother (thanks Jake!) and have begun my reading adventure. From many discussions about this book, current and past supervisors, I have learned the most important thing. You will NEVER make an employee better by criticizing them. They will not only turn against you, but against the company. If you “get off” on taking other peoples chips away, then you are, in fact a sociopath. If you “get off” on inspiring others to shine, jump, embrace and react, then you are a leader, a visionary and a true winner. I am looking forward to taking the journey through Steve Job’s life. I am looking forward as a wife, mother, Director and an employee to saying “What would Steve do?” Rock on baby bro.
Jake,
Enjoyed the article. Jake you captured Steve Jobs in a one page article, great work. My only comment:” THE PROOF OF THE (APPLE) PIE IS IN THE EATING.” Steve Jobs was a great baker and for all of us that benefited from his efforts the pie tasted great.
Stuart Hodesh