"The Steve Jobs Way" - My Take

The last Apple product I owned...it failed two days
out of warranty.

Several members of senior management at my workplace have mentioned The Steve Jobs Way, and so I thought it might be a worthy endeavor if I were to also pick up a copy. No—not to suck up (although having the same taste in books never hurts!), but rather to see what changes we might look forward to (or perhaps dread) around my office…

The Steve Jobs Way is written to a primary audience of business leaders. In relation to product/service-driven companies, it covers the gamut of topics from brainstorming the next big seller, to motivating a team who will rally behind it, to logistics, to branding and marketing the product. All of this, of course, is interwoven with author and former Apple Senior Vice President Jay Elliot’s personal accounts from his tenure reporting to Steve Jobs.

My current position affords no oversight when it comes to product development, so it was difficult for me to directly relate to the philosophies of doing business presented herein. All I could do was think, “Wow, that’s a great concept,” or, “That would work great at my office if they’d implement it” (i.e. reducing layers of approvals and subsequent varying opinions). Good stuff to file as it may well come in handy in a future life…

What captivated me most were Apple Computer history lessons that all the corporate philosophical talk is built around. My first experience with a desktop computer was on the Apple IIe, followed a few years later by the Macintosh (these at my elementary school—at home I was raised on PCs). The history behind these early Apple machines fascinates me, even if like I said before, I’m a PC guy all the way.

More recently we’ve seen Apple devices such as iPod, iPhone, and iPad revolutionize the computing world as we know it. Herein, however, lies one of The Steve Jobs Way’s biggest downfalls: As history is discussed, there is no timeline or organization. Dates, while appearing occasionally, are often left out. One minute the author talks about the Apple Lisa, just a few pages later he’s talking about the iMac, then turn a few more pages and it’s on to the iPod. All groundbreaking Apple products—but each from different decades. It would have been helpful if dates were more clearly identified.

Contrary to the dates dilemma, topics discussed such as “Door Opener Branding” and “The Ultimate User: The Customer as Me, Me as the Customer” are neatly organized under headings and subheadings, while an extensive table of contents points readers to the specifics.

The Steve Jobs Way provides a number of business and leadership principles that are especially relevant to leaders in today’s corporate world. It offers insights from a company who has defined thinking outside the box and which many other corporate behemoths have sought to emulate, if not in product than at least in values.

For those who subscribe to the Cult of Apple, this book provides an entertaining look into the life, viewpoints, and history behind the creator of i-Everything. A corporate philosophy textbook with some interesting history serving as a backdrop makes these less-than-200-pages an interesting and worthwhile read.