This week we were able to see one of the world’s most
influential leaders, Steve Jobs begin a new adventure with the creation of a
new computer company he called NeXT. In the spring of 1985 Jobs decided to
leave Apple after losing a power struggle, and from there he took many key
engineers from the former Macintosh team to join him on his new journey ahead.
Throughout the video we witnessed how he made many bad decisions while
developing his startup business, which ultimately lead to the unsuccessful
hardware product. Jobs put a lot of his own money and time in trying to create
a product around a company when he should have spent more time focusing on
building his company around a great product. He was not flexible, unwilling to
change, and unaware of what was going on in the market which caused many issues
in the development. His employees were treated to retreats wherein he tried to
encourage open discussions, but throughout the retreats he dominated many of
the conversations and had a tendency to play a role in every single aspect of
the company in a micro managing style leadership. Although Jobs is recognized
for changing the way the world is today technologically his charismatic charm
was not always the best fit for his leadership role.
Based on the results
of my Management Assesment I would not fit well with the makeup and culture of
the Next startup team. My profile concluded that the best type of environment
for me would be in a large rapid growth venture business environment with
independent business units and divisions. Working in a startup team would be a
very risky move and I feel that I wouldn’t be able to reach my full potential
since the type of chaos that exists is not suitable with my attributes. I
prefer an organization that already has a solid structure with fluid change
where I am able to make my own decisions and my own goals. Steve Jobs
interrupted a lot throughout the retreats the team participated in when he
didn’t agree with a point or when he was trying to make his.
Working in a
group to resolve every single issue would be a challenge for me especially
because I am not the type to take being interrupted well. I feel like some
projects are good for working as a team but I would mainly prefer to work
either alone or with a smaller number of colleagues such as two or three. I
think that Jobs had amazing intentions using retreats to resolve issues, foster
creativity and build strong relationships within the team but I do not think he
was using them to his full advantage. It seemed as if every time one of the
employees challenged him he was quick to shut them down along with the
communication channels. He was so influential over the group they were not able
to problem solve as well as I think they could have if they had a chance to
speak.
The whole nature
of the startup alone would be a very stressful environment for me because every
day would be unpredictable and unplanned. Creating a new business involves
finding a location, hiring employees, strategy, visions, product, capital,
target market, competitors, overhead, and marketing all of which are not areas
I would be happy doing per the results of my MA. Problem solving is one of my
strengths and this many problems would probably make me shut down and feel
overwhelmed since one of my weaknesses is how my decisions can negatively
affect others. In my MA I learned that acting as a role model is important to
me, and this is why I tend to struggle with making important decisions that
will affect others. For example if I were Jobs and I was presented with the
dilemma to let go of five of the employees that left their secure jobs at Apple
to work on my new business in order for Next to remain open I would sit on the
decision in hopes of revenue to come in before I would be able to fire my loyal
employees. The way it would make me look to others and the way it would make me
feel would be too hard for me to act swiftly and strategically to make the best
decision for the company and the remaining employees.
I also learned
throughout my debrief that my strengths of highly motivated to problem solve,
create new products and services and be creative are all my weaknesses and
create a double edge sword type of scenario. I tend to over think and over
analyze many problems I encounter this creating a new way to resolve them either
by creating a new process; however I fail to recognize that my time spent
creating a new process could have been wasted if there was already an efficient
process working. This would be another issue I would have working with the NeXT
team as they were creating, solving and working to create efficient products
and services. I foresee myself at NeXT
feeling very unhappy and unfulfilled and eventually trying to get my job back
with Apple.
Overall this was
a very interesting company and learning about Steve Jobs leadership throughout
the startup process was much different than my previous assumptions. He was a
very intelligent charismatic man that loved details to the point he sort of
sabotaged himself. He failed to devolve responsibilities to willing and able employees
and set their goals for them. He made unreachable deadlines and made a lot of
financially poor decisions. He was a brilliant man who took a chance but I feel
he was working with the mentality that his new company was already established
like Apple was when he left and failed to realize he needed to go back to the
drawing board and build the company up.
References
Steve Jobs
Brainstorms with NeXT Team [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loQhufxiorM&feature=youtu.be
NextSteps
Research.
(n.d.). Retrieved December 18, 2013, from http://www.nextstepsresearch.com/index.htm
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