Join Me in Getting to #1; Rap Genius Investment; Steve Jobs’ Return; 2 Left
October 4, 2012
Avoid Burnout; Brad Feld’s New Book; Key to 2013; Rockefeller Habits workshops
October 9, 2012

Apple’s Tribute to Steve Jobs – and Some Lesssons

"…keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

Apple's Tribute to Steve Jobs — today marks the one year anniversary of Steve Jobs passing. As a tribute, Apple has produced this short video (thank you Bill Becker for pointing this out to me).

Inside Apple — and if you've not read it yet, take the weekend and read Adam Lashinsky's book Inside Apple. It chronicles the key business practices, like no other book has, that led to the most valuable company on the planet. I specifically like how Lashinsky shares details down to Steve's specific day-to-day routines.

Daily Luncheon — one of those routines was having lunch almost every day with his chief designer, Jonathan Ive. Design is what drove Apple's success; in turn, Steve's calendar reflected what mattered most. Like John D. Rockefeller's daily luncheon with his directors, their lunch gave Jobs and Ive the critical talk time they needed to drive this critical function of the business. "If you want to move faster, pulse faster."

Weekly Marketing Meeting — Hermann Simon's research on "hidden champions" found that the CEO stays laser focused on two functions: innovation and marketing. Steve, himself, chaired the 3 hour Wednesday afternoon marketing meeting – not surprising.

3-Hours per Day Focused on #1 Priority — and to support innovation, Steve literally spent three hours each day working on whatever was the key focus – launching the iPod, designing the new retail store, etc. He learned in his "wilderness years" the power of having a single focus i.e. Pixar's "Toy Story." As such, he would pick one major initiative, and like an Olympic athlete, give it three hours per day of is undivided attention. That's how you get big things accomplished!

Verne Harnish
Verne Harnish
Verne Harnish is founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and chaired for fifteen years EO’s premiere CEO program, the “Birthing of Giants” and WEO’s “Advanced Business” executive program both held at MIT. Founder and CEO of Gazelles, a global executive education and coaching company with over 150 coaching partners on six continents, Verne has spent the past three decades helping companies scale-up. The “Growth Guy” syndicated columnist, he’s also the Venture columnist for FORTUNE magazine. He’s the author of Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0); Mastering the Rockefeller Habits; and along with the editors of Fortune, authored The Greatest Business Decisions of All Times," for which Jim Collins wrote the foreword. Verne also chairs FORTUNE Magazine’s annual Leadership and Growth Summits and serves on several boards including chairman of The Riordan Clinic and the newly launched Geoversity. He is an investor in many scale-ups. A father of four, he enjoys piano, tennis, and magic as a card-carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.