Try as Apple University might, Steve Jobs is irreplaceable

Published 7:16 am Thursday, October 27, 2011

Some leaders have a stronger sense of mortality than others. Certainly it was something very much on Steve Jobs’ mind as the trajectory of his health became so clear.

He was a co-founder of Apple Corp. but had been fired — exiled, technically, but with the same effect — and he left the company in 1985. Apple eventually ran into some rough weather and Jobs was invited back, retaking the reins as CEO in 1997.

It was a second act unprecedented in American business history. Jobs took Apple to new heights of innovation that moved global markets, transformed customers into devoted followers, and brought the firm to an Olympian level of financial success.

Jobs had created a corporate culture and a company like no other. And more than anyone else inside or outside of Apple he was aware of what he had accomplished — what was structure and what was style — and concerned about what would happen to the company when he was gone.

To document, analyze and understand how the company approached technical and market issues as well as the decision-making process that resolved them, Jobs started up a group that became known informally as Apple University. (An earlier, corporate version of Apple University had been shut down in the 1990s.)

As his health continued to deteriorate, he came to realize that his Apple University would need its own leadership and in 2008 he recruited the dean of the Yale School of Management, Joel Podolny, to come and take charge of it and, in a very real sense, of Jobs’ legacy as well.

Podolny knows how to put together a business education program and he has used a traditional MBA approach to resolving problems. He recruited some of the brightest lights in the business education field to research the history of Apple’s major decisions and to create case studies that illustrate the key points and illuminate Jobs’ approach and thinking process. These case studies are being used to educate the company’s next generation of leaders.

From an educational standpoint, Apple University, as a way to keep the organization’s structure and spirit alive, has successful precedents in history but few, if any, in business specifically. And the reasons for that may reduce the effectiveness and shorten the life expectancy of the Jobs legacy effort.

The principal reason is that Steve Jobs was what academics call sui generis, a one-of-a-kind entrepreneur and CEO. Apple executives, academics and outside analysts can talk all they like about preserving Steve Jobs’ DNA in the corporate organization, but the truth is that it isn’t possible.

Knowing about how a leader approached and solved problems can be extremely valuable to any of us, whether you want to lead a corporation, an army, a day-care center or a family. But knowing about someone, even a lot about someone, doesn’t make us into that person. It may change us — and hopefully will — but we are still who we are.

The second reason why replicating a leader’s thinking process is so problematic is that even spectacularly successful business leaders are in most cases less than perfect. Their imperfections can range from the merely annoying habits to deep character flaws, from blind spots in judgment, especially about people, to serious behavior patterns that display arrogance more than wisdom.

We know, for example, that Steve Jobs could be very difficult to work with. Certainly that was part of the reason why he was asked to leave the company back in the mid-1980s. What we don’t know is how that behavior fit into the overall creative-productive-effective leadership totality that Jobs became.

Those of us who have studied and analyzed leadership have recognized for a long time that while flaws and imperfections are part of being human, their role in a leader’s effectiveness is a mystery. It is an area that has not been studied effectively and for all we know flaws may be a more significant part of the process than we would like to think.

The third reason why Apple University’s task will be difficult is the speed of economic change. Economies change rapidly and companies must change with them or disappear. Successful leaders recognize this and they themselves tend to adapt and evolve as new issues require different approaches.

The thoughtful and talent-rich effort at Apple, then, can quite possibly replicate the way Steven Jobs approached and met the challenges the firm faced while he was its leader. And it will help the company manage though this difficult transition. But it doesn’t tell us how he would approach and meet the challenges that will confront Apple next year or in the years after that. Ultimately it will come down to this: He will be missed.

James McCusker is a Bothell economist, educator and small-business consultant. He can be reached by email at otisrep@aol.com.