The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs - Book Report/Review Example

Steve Jobs Biography Introduction This book talks about the life of Steve Jobs, one of the cofounders of Apple. His story is the perfect entrepreneur write up as it shows how he started out the company in his parents’ garage. He was so determined to see the company that even after being ousted in 1985, he returned when the company was on the verge of bankruptcy to rebuild it into a valuable company in the world (Malcolm). As he built his company, he helped other industries to climb the business ladder with him including animated movies, tablet computing, personal computing, music, digital publishing, phones, and retail stores. His place as America’s great innovators was well earned together some of his friends like Walt Disney, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison. All these men have something in common; being innovators and successful. They were not saints but long after they are gone, the world will still remember how their imaginations became technology business. The writer indicates that Jobs’ personality was integral to his way of doing business. He was passionate about everything he did it almost seemed like normal rules were not applicable in his life. It is clear that the author created the book from the mind of Jobs. The tale of the Apple founder is not evolving rather the world around him did the evolving for him. The author is mastery of bringing out Jobs life to the readers perspective. Personal Review For people who are interested in technology, this biography is a best read as Steve jobs had no skeletons in his closet that could not be shown to the public (Isaacson). The revelations that are brought forth by the author are not shocking at all, rather the nuance of other people and the original perspective that Jobs portrayed always showed personal focus into all events. One perfectly demonstrated example on this is iPhone 4 antenna problem. According to Isaacson the engineers had given a warning on a possible reception problem but Steve Jobs with his magical thinking insisted that they could come up with a way to make it work. When the problem on the phone arose, Jobs insisted that the problem ought to have been ignored as it was not worth it (Isaacson 521). It was only when he was confronted that he decided to call a press conference. Similarly, Jobs was angry on the night after the iPad debut because he had received so many emails in one day complaining about the product’s lack of a USB cord. The reception of his products by the audience was so personal for him that it brought out so much emotion. Like a good leader, he did not start with blaming other people because he was a dictator in every stage of development (Isaacson); form inception to advertisement. Being greatly involved in his productions is a great expression of work ethics, even when he was ill he still managed to show his genius and creativity at work. He was not afraid of critiquing anything that came to his alert, but those who took him badly could not last for long. He was described with abusive words due to his stern nature; even the author does not counterfeit the accusations, but even so, the world is still enjoying that ill hearted person’s creativity and technology. His focus and achievements makes people forget his irrational character and give him praise. The author seems to agree that his harshness and demanding attitude was the birth of Jobs career. Steve Jobs’ style of management or to some other people lack of it is well described in this biography. He was harsh to people yet he cried in front of his coworkers when he got frustrated by work, when happy, angry or cornered. He was an emotional being which as a leader would confuse people. But as passion was his drive, he did not care about other peoples reactions as long as they performed their duties. Many people have tried to come with management lessons from this biography, but they make a mistake at looking his roughness with workers. Steve Jobs told the author that anyone who felt badly treated had the right to go away yet no one did, because they were happy of what they achieved. His achievements are the lessons that one can draw on in management (Isaacson). It should be noted that Jobs greatest achievement, as he described was the company not the products. He was proud to have an enduring company whose existence would be studied by many business schools even after he died. Some of the operation management lessons from this book include: Operations Management Review Focus Jobs return to Apple in 1997 was a shock to him as the company was only producing peripherals and computers. He was shocked at how they had bankrupted the company for lack of product improvement (Isaacson). Constantly improving the product is crucial in the consumer market mostly in technology as it is highly advancing. He asked the team members to stop the kind of production they were doing and concentrate on four products; one product for each quarter of the year. He asked to cancel the other products, a mere surprise to the people, yet they came to understand that product specialization is key to market penetration. The company was saved due to his decision on what to focus on. This is a great lesson in operations management as one has to decide what to do and what to leave out not just for the organizational part of the company, but also for the products they deal with. Additionally, after making sure that the company was able to stand on its feety again, he started taking the top 100 performers in the company for retreats every year not just to enjoy but also to brainstorm on the next things that the company could focus on. This made people equally creative and innovative as they aimed to be the top again. This in kind is motivation for workers. Even though he was harsh on workers, he surely knew how to get them on their feet through motivation. Showing workers that it’s a team and every person’s opinion accounts helps them to be innovative as they know that they are also benefiting. Even though he only put the top three into actualization for the year, team work played a big role in jogging the minds of the workers. Jobs’ Zen training had rained into him focus as a trait (Isaacson). He filtered out distractions to focus on the most important matters. It was worse for family and friends who tried to make him deal with issues like medical diagnosis and legal problems. It was tiring for them as his priority was the company and would only shift his focus when he thought he had achieved his goal and was ready to shift his concentration for a while. Even in his death bed, Jobs was willing to give advice on the importance of focus to the Google cofounder Larry Page. His advice was to focus on the things that mattered and make them as good as they can be, and leave out the ones that were adequate but not great. This because Steve Jobs, felt that such products only drag the company behind. It is evident that Google became successful after following this advice. Simplicity Being focused did not mean necessarily complicating things but making them as easy as possible to deal with. Zeroing in on the most important material and cutting out the unnecessary information would make it easier to concentrate and make a sophisticated simple product. Jobs learnt about simplicity in Atari where he wads working a night shift after he dropped out of college. He discovered that the games were made in an uncomplicated way to make it possible for a fresh man to figure it out since they did not come with a manual (Malcolm). It is crucial to make things simple and conquering but not ignoring the complexity. This is because consumers enjoy being able to operate products they spent a fortune on without having to undergo a phone tutorial with the operations overtime they think of using a new application in the product. Being simple means cutting out the clutter that makes the product complicated and by simply making sure every detail of the product is understood before its commencement. For example, when the iPod interface was being designed, Jobs insisted on simplicity; being able to reach what he wanted with a maximum of three clicks. Redefining the problem and its approach is the key to simplicity. Being responsible from start to end Jobs believed that making things simple would mean integrating software, hardware and peripheral devices. By so doing, services would be simpler, and the synching would be smoother thus avoiding glitches. The apple company also took responsibility of their products for the user experience (Malcolm). This is rare in many companies but it is crucial in operations if they are aiming at a specific target consumer like Apple does. According to job giving other people the responsibility meant an opportunity for making crap products. Furthermore every individual would love to have a device that is integrated to their computers since they are too busy to look for technicians to do so and it would also cost them. Taking responsibility allows the organization to have a great relationship with the end users as they trust them with the widgets in their devices. Their lives have simply been made easier just by purchasing a device. Innovativeness Being innovative does not only mean being able to come up with great ideas but also knowing when you are behind technology and making the leap forward. According to Isaacson, Jobs focused on making the iMac useful to managing videos and photos and forgot about music which made him feel like a dope for forgetting such a duty to the users (Isaacson). Instead of catching up, Job decided to leap forward and change the music industry by integrating iTunes, iPod, and iTunes store that allowed users to buy, manage, share, play and store music. This was better than any product in the market. Innovativeness is all about outdoing the others with creativity and innovativeness. Stealing their ideas and modifying them to greater and better products. Similarly, his ability to be a distorter of reality went hand in hand with innovativeness. Jobs knew how to push people to do the impossible and this is the height of innovations in operation management. This trait even though it was not liked by many people would lead people to do the most magical imaginations in this world. Even things they thought they could never do. For example, Steve Wozniak created a game in four days, yet he had estimated it would take months. In operations, Jobs was great as he did not allow people to lag behind with deadlines. He believed the impossible would be done. Imputation This is a word that Jobs learnt by how the human nature judges a book by its cover. Thus his aim was always to make something attractive from the moment it is unpacked. This he termed as imputing the perspective of the end user. It is important to catch the attention of the users from the word go. For example when he made the iMac with a handle, it was simply to make the product deferential and friendly, not necessarily useful. In his imputing endeavor, Jobs always pushed for perfection. He was known for stopping the manufacturing of a product in the middle and going back to the drawing board to perfect it. Having the consumer in mind and putting oneself in their shoes help to perfect a product. For example, one of his designers stated that the iPhone ought to have been designed with the display as the eye catcher (Malcolm). Its original design had had an aluminum case for the glass screen thus the attention was divided between the display and the casing. This made the case to be changed to the required intentions even though the whole product was finished. His team was forced to work night shifts and weekends to make it happen. Their effort paid off since the iPhone hit the market with a bang. Conclusion Steve Jobs was not afraid to point out errors even though it would hurt his employees. This book indicates that leadership is a tough job since you have to compromise the love of the people by telling the truth which hurts. His honesty was brutal, but the good thing about him is that he also encouraged people to criticize him in a similar brutal way. He was not interested in appearing to be good to others, rather his focus and creativity coated with honesty had to be followed. His focus was the career he worked so hard to built and he couldn’t let any menial things destroy it. Jobs believed that he had control over his career, which the reader is now sure that he did, and he worked towards it. This however caused him too much stress when something he believed in failed to go as expected. In management, sharing of duties is essential to avoid any stressful incidences that would lead to sickness. Works Cited Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013. Print. Isaacson, Walter. “The real leadership lessons of Steve Jobs.” Harvard business review 90.4 (2012): 92-102. Print. Malcolm, Gladwell. “The tweaker: The real genius of Steve Jobs.” The New Yorker 14 (2011): 32-35. Read More