Steve Jobs on Leadership
“Find people that want the same things you want, and then just get the hell out of their way.” – Steve Jobs
In 2003, after Steve Jobs returned to Apple for the second time, he was invited to speak with a group of MBA students at Stanford. He wasted no time in eviscerating various management fads of the day, including “management by objective,” which was very popular in Silicon Valley at the time:
“When I was younger, it was management by objective. It’s all a crock. They’re all after-the-fact management techniques: “You’ve failed, and I know that because we are going out of business tomorrow.” All after the fact. “You’ve ruined this department; all the good people have left. So now I’m firing you.” “You’ve accomplished none of your objectives.” It doesn’t work.”
It’s not that objectives aren’t important – of course they are. Objectives are guideposts that tell us we are on track and moving toward our destination. The problem with management by objective is the danger that the objective will become the destination. To void this, Jobs goes on to explain his preferred approach, which he called “management by values:”
“A really smart guy I met a long time ago who used to teach at Disney University—Walt Disney recruited him to run Disney University, actually—he told me about his point of view, which I’ve remembered to this day. He called it management by values. What that means is you find people that want the same things you want, and then just get the hell out of their way.
The way I describe it is, let’s say we’re all going to take a trip together. The first thing is to figure out where we all want to go. The worst thing is if we all decide we want to go to different places. You can never manage it. [Pointing] You want to go to New Orleans. You want to go somewhere else. I want to go to San Francisco. You want to go to San Diego.
It doesn’t work. Right?
But if we all want to go to San Diego, that’s the key. Then we can argue about how to get there. [Pointing] You think it’s better to walk. You think it’s better to take a plane. You think it’s better to take a train. We’ll figure that [part] out. Because if I say, “I want to take a train to San Diego,” and somebody goes, “That’s really stupid! It will take three days! We can fly and be there in an hour,” I’ll go, “Oh. OK.” Because, actually, I want to go to San Diego. So if I can get there in an hour [flying], I’ll ditch my idea about the train.
Jobs’ approach to leadership requires three things; first, you must get very clear about where you are going as an organization. You have to know what you value and what the destination is, so that everyone in the organization can move toward the same goal.
This is one of the first questions I ask when I start working with a new client: are you clear about the destination? I’m trying to understand if the executive team is aligned around a common vision, and in tune with the deeper mission of why the company exists.
The second key to management by values is to find people that value the shared destination and are intrinsically motivated to get there. This is why Jobs spent so much of his time recruiting, and why he often repeated to executives at Apple and Pixar that “recruiting is the most important thing you do. Finding the right people–that’s half the battle.”
Here’s Job’s on these first two elements of leadership:
That’s what management by values is. It’s finding people with passion that want to go to San Diego—who want to go to the same place you want to go to! Right? That’s the key.
And so, what happened at Apple was that Apple’s goals used to be to make the best personal computers in the world. And then the second goal was to make a profit so we could keep on doing number one. Right?
What happened was that, for a time, those got reversed: “We want to make a bunch of money, and so, OK, to do that, we’re going to have to make some good personal computers.” But it didn’t work. It never works. And so things start to fall apart.
This is a brilliant and succinct summary of why Apple was unsuccessful in the 1990s, and why Jobs was able to eventually turn the organization around. At its very essence, what Jobs did when he returned to Apple was restore the destination – “to make the best personal computers in the world” – as the primary goal and relegate the goal of making money to the secondary position. He focused on the values, and then recruited like crazy to find passionate people who shared those values.
And that brings us to the third element of Jobs’ approach to leadership: “get the hell out of the way.” Once you have clarity on the destination, and have the right people on board, then it’s about removing obstacles and clearing space to unleash the passion and creativity of your people.
If you enjoyed this article then I encourage you to check out the book, Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs In His Own Words, a free e-book, beautifully published by the Steve Jobs Archives, where you will find the Jobs’ entire speech to the Stanford MBA class and many other speeches and writings.
About the Author
Sean Murray is a keynote speaker, leadership coach and the author of If Gold Is Our Destiny: How a Team of Mavericks Came Together for Olympic Glory. His firm, RealTime Performance, provides leadership development and training to businesses and non-profits.
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