• How did Steve Jobs foster teamwork?
Steve Jobs had a great ability to bridge the intellectual fragmentation between his employees and make them work as a team. This was very evident in November 2000. Jobs bought an abandoned Del Monte canning factory in north Oakland. The original design was to purchase three buildings, with offices for Pixar executives, computer scientists and animators. Jobs immediately tossed this plan. Instead of three buildings, he suggested a single vast space, with a casual atrium at the center. The philosophy behind this plan was to put, what Jobs thought, was the most important function at the center of the building. The most important function to Jobs was the interaction of the employees.
However, Jobs realized that he needed to motivate the employees to go there. The biggest challenge for Pixar, as he saw it, was to get different cultures working together. In an attempt to do that, He moved mailboxes, to the atrium. In addition, also moved the meeting rooms, the cafeteria, coffee bar and gift shop. Moreover, he only put a set of bathrooms in the atrium.
In an age of intellectual divide, Jobs believed that the best creations happened when individuals with different backgrounds were connected together, when different ways of seeing the world were brought to bear on a singular issue.
Steve Jobs was also much known for Challenging teams on every level. This appeared effective when a few people thrived to become top performers. These high performers were extremely motivated by the pride they gained from meeting the challenge.
What were the early strategic decisions Steve Jobs made?
The key decision which Steve jobs made in his early years can be summarized into seven decisions. First, Jobs decided to take the reins when he took control of apple. In late 1996, NeXT was purchased, then Gil Amelio, the CEO of apple then, hired jobs as a special Advisor. Jobs did not simply provide advice, he convinced the board of directors to oust Amelio. After that, he nominated himself as a replacement. The bored then agreed, and he was back in control.
Second, Jobs trimmed the fat. Prior to jobs returning to apple, the firm produced dozens of various Macintosh desktops, laptops, and servers. The company also produced digital cameras, printers, and others, few of which were profitable.
Eventually, Jobs dismissed more than 70% of Apple’s products. At last, He set a four-square grid to represent Macintosh: two for customer desktops and portables, and two for professional desktops and portables.
Third, in 1996, most members on Board of Directors had been fixated on how they could split Apple and sell it to the highest bidder. Jobs, upon his return, witness that and knew he was in need of a new positive and loyal board. Jobs, within a few weeks, managed to force the most of Apple’s board members to resign. Jobs then installed his close friends to be on the board of directors.
Jobs also reorganized Apple as a firm, which enabled him to clear away various product-centric departments that consumed company resources. Instead, Jobs installed departments for finance, marketing, manufacturing and sales.
Fourth, Jobs plugged the leaks. When Amelio was CEO, press leaks from Apple staff happened very commonly such as attempts to pressure the CEO to changing his policies. That did not occur under Jobs. Jobs set up a ban on staff to talk to the press and laid of many employees which helped enforce the ban. This ban gave apple the advantage of secrecy, suspense and surprise.
Fifth, Jobs killed the clones. during 1994, Apple started licensing Mac OS to a few certain vendors with a fee of $80 per machine in order to use the operating system. Eventually, it appeared that this was effecting apple negatively. Manufacturers which were creating clones were able to produce moderately low cost machines which hurt Apple’s similar best profitable product line. Not only did the clones affect the product line, they also affected the expansion of the Mac platform. So, when Steve Jobs became CEO, he realized he had to let go of licensing Mac OS. In 1997, Jobs refused to license Mac OS 8 to the clone vendors when it was released, which in turn ended the clone program.
Sixth, Steve Jobs Trusted Jonathan Ive. In 1996, when Jobs became CEO again, Jonathan Ive was the manager of the firm’s design team. At first, Jobs looked to other designers for a potential new managers of design. However, Ive and Jobs soon became friends. They discovered they had key elements of design philosophies in common.
As a result of this friendship, Jobs put his trust in the untested designer instead of recruiting someone else from the outside. Both, along other staff members, created some of the greatest well-known consumer electronics designs which were ever made.
Finally, he buried the hatchet. When Jobs first was CEO of Apple, he had been mostly Portrayed Apple and IBM being in the PC market place as a conflict. As a resulted, that turned Apple against Microsoft, which was the firm that supplied the IBM PC’s operating system and then tried to copy the design of graphical Macintosh OS by producing Windows.
The acrimony between Apple and Microsoft continued after 1985, even after Jobs was no longer CEO. This idea became an essential part in the culture of apple which demonstrated itself as a deep hatred for anything Microsoft or Wintel. At the same time, the Macintosh’s market share decreased dramatically and reach singular digits.
After Jobs was removed in 1996, he admitted that the desktop PC wars between IBM and Apple were over; Microsoft had won since it was the market leader at the time. As Jobs saw it, it was not is Apple’s interest to waste its time and resources fighting a war against Microsoft that he knew apple couldn’t won’t win. He thought, Apple should play it cool and play on its own terms. At this time, it would really help to be on the safe side of the market opposing it at a time of struggle.
Microsoft promised to devote substantial manpower to develop new versions of Internet Explorer and Office for the Macintosh for minimum of five years, in exchange for a deal of patent cross-licensing. To ensure the vested interest of Microsoft in the success of Apple, it also bought $150 million worth of apple shares. Apple then agreed to make Internet Explorer the default browser for Mac OS for five years in return.¬
This deal, which was broadcasted by Jobs at Boston Macworld 1997 (with Bill Gates on a screen behind him), was an effective way to make Mac fans bury the hatchet and eventually move on.
Jobs believed strongly that Apple could succeed together with Microsoft, not necessarily one or the other. The new position Job’s took on Microsoft unrestrained up mental energy in Apple which was restrained by hatred, so both fans and developers could move on and lead new markets in the coming years.
• How did Steve Jobs Communicate and resolve conflicts?
Rosen, an employee, said of his previous boss: “Steve would walk in the door and say, 'Alright, what's going on?' Somebody in the room would say we're trying to figure this out, maybe go to a whiteboard, and say we couldn't figure out what to do. And [Steve] would say, 'What about doing this?' And you could look around the room and you could just see people dumbfounded, their jaws dropping, because it was a really good idea.” This quote states clearly how Jobs was able to communicate and resolve problems effectively and efficiently when he was CEO.
It is worth mentioning Steve Jobs faced many problems and conflicts during his time with apples which showed some sides of his personality that helped him get through them. First, he was really persistent. This was much exemplified when he exited apple. He refused to give up, and instead start neXT computers which was later on acquired by apple. If he was not persistent, he wouldn’t have been able to take back his place as CEO of apple again.
In addition to being persistent, Jobs was very determined to pursue his dreams. He never let any circumstances stand in the way of his success or dreams. In order to do so, Jobs was very proactive and solution focused in seizing opportunities instead of being reactive to any negative event that might occur.
Moreover, Jobs was really passionate and fearless when it came to the growth of apple. Although most of his actions were perceived to put apple in a lot of risk, that enabled apple to solve most of its problems by creating plenty of windows of opportunities.