This week’s blog exercise was actually pretty fun since it provided me an opportunity to learn a little about how Steve Jobs approached his NeXT startup venture in the 1980’s, how he facilitated the NeXT team dynamics, and how my personality would have fit into this team. I think it’s safe to say Steve Jobs has not only become somewhat of a legend because of his technological accomplishments, but also from the way he created his businesses and interacted with people. On second thought, strike that, I think he has reached legendary status at this point. I remember purchasing my first Apple product, an iPod Generation 3, back in 2003. At the time, I bought into the Apple craze that was sweeping the world and marveled at the advanced technology they provided. However, as time progressed I became somewhat frustrated with the way Apple forced me into using their proprietary software and began looking into other options. I gave Apple another chance when my wife bought her first iPhone, but the end result was still the same. I felt Apple lacked the freedom of how I wanted to use their products and these limitations turned me off. To this day, I respect and admire Apple’s ingenuity and contributions to the tech world, but their products are just not for me. Anyway, I digress since this exercise is not really about my personal experience and opinion of Apple and their products.
The youtube video Steve Jobs Brainstorms with NeXT Team gives us a glimpse of a young Steve Jobs building his startup from the ground up. It shows us how Steve tried to turn his visions into reality and the team dynamics of the individuals that left Apple to follow him. A few weeks ago I completed a survey through NextSteps Research that produced a Management Assessment Profile (MAP) consisting of characteristics and how they related to a large dynamic business environment. This week I am tasked to discuss how my MAP characteristics would have fit into this NeXT team environment. The first thing I noticed in the video was how Steve Jobs interacted with his team. To my surprise, it was nothing like I expected. I built my assumptions of Steve around everything I have heard or read regarding how difficult he could be to work for and with. I anticipated him to be more impersonal, arrogant, and authoritarian. Someone who dominated every aspect of every process and was well, just plain mean. Yet, he seemed beyond reasonable in my opinion and just very focused on keeping everyone else focused, especially considering the amount of pressure he must have been experiencing. Granted, I understand this was an incredibly small sample size into his approach, but again I saw no indication of any unreasonableness.
So here I am, sitting in a room with Steve Jobs and the rest of the NeXT team trying to strategize about developing a product that does not exist and hopefully make the startup successful. First off, I am uncomfortable. The MAP has a scale ranging from a large company to mid-sized company all the way down to a small startup company. My place on this scale showed I might best fit within a large company, so a startup company already does not fit my characteristics. I am also not a big risk taker and tend to seek out positions that provide security as evidenced in my MAP showing that I have a very low desire for both business and personal risk. To essentially have blind faith and follow someone’s vision in hopes of longevity is uncharacteristic and feels like a win big or lose big gamble. Another area I may have faltered is the need to create or innovate. I think saying the NeXT team is made up of creative and innovative individuals would be a gross understatement, so I’m not sure I would have meshed well with the team in this area and may have felt quite intimidated. Although I agree with the MAP that I am highly motivated to solve problems, my process creativity and inventiveness might have slowed down the team in this area. This is especially true since I am more comfortable with a set of standard rules or practices but like to modify or use them in other ways to solve problems, however, these do not exist since this is a startup. Despite these aforementioned shortcomings in a startup environment, I do have strengths that would help in making strong contributions to the NeXT team. I believe Jobs said something along the lines of “Do it from the heart, because you're passionate about it, more so than simply to make a buck!” (Steve Job Brainstorms, 2012). His philosophy aligns with my MAP’s financial characteristic in how I am not driven by financial metrics to quantify success. My MAP’s area of the achievement attribute displayed that I have a high desire for a challenge, I am highly motivated to exceed goals, and I know how to use resources to achieve goals. All of these attributes seem to fit well with Job’s vision and I believe would have strengthened the synergy amongst the NeXT team. I am aware this exercise was just that, an exercise. But visualizing myself in that room with Steve Jobs and the NeXT team provided great value to me because it forced me to visualize how I would have responded to his challenges and interacted with the team. I believe that once I was over the initial shock of leaving the security of Apple, I would have performed very well in meeting Job’s expectations.
Reference
Сергей Петренко. January 2012. Steve Jobs Brainstorms with NeXT Team. [Video file].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loQhufxiorM&feature=youtu.be
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