Jobs’ Army
Modified from an original photo from Joi Ito under a Creative Commons license.
The number of testimonials to Steve Jobs has been nothing short of amazing, eulogies rarely seen this side of a world leader or pop icon. Major media outlets and humble (ahem) blogs all seem to have something to say regarding Jobs’ passing.
Misunderstandings abound. News outlets breathlessly cite Jobs as an inventor and creator. Reinforcing this are the hundreds of patents owned by Apple with Jobs’ name on them, but all of Apple’s extraordinary products were designed, commissioned, and/or purchased by Apple as a whole. Windows still retains snippets of code written by Bill Gates himself but Jobs was neither an engineer nor a programmer, even with a background in electronics working at HP and Atari.
Jobs often described Apple as being the juncture of technology and liberal arts. It is specifically the performing arts where we can see his genius. Cinema is the best example, dance choreography and stage will often fit as well. The movies may have actors with charisma and star power, but a movies’ success often hinges on the director. The genius of the director is to get the best performances from the actors, choose the best shots from the cinematographers, and have the final say on casting, costuming, and set design. The director is both herding cats and juggling plates when combining the technical expertise of the film crew and the performances of the writers, cast, and soundtrack. The director is relying on the performances of others (with a few exceptions), yet with the good ones, we can always see their fingerprints all over the final product. Consider Alfred Hitchcock (used as part of Apple’s famous “Think Different” ad campaign) who rarely looked through the camera lens when filming, but is one of the most distinctive directors in film history. There is no mistaking a Hitchcock film.
We rarely lionize directors outside of the performing arts or sports teams. Perhaps its because current CEO culture lets mediocre leaders rise to the top with minimal innovation or that the current political climate relies too much on contributions and greased palms to enact much policy. The genius of creating and enabling an environment where creativity thrives in business culture is a lost art.
That is where Jobs’ genius lay; the ability to gather a group of talented people, muster the resources and environment they needed, and coaching them into doing their best work.
