Steve Jobs Organizational Vision and Culture 1
Steve Jobs Organizational Vision and Culture
Johnathen Houston
MBA-550-X1650
Southern New Hampshire University
November 27, 2016
Steve Jobs Organizational Vision and Culture
Steve Jobs passed away in October 2011 and he left behind a legacy in Apple Inc. due to his exceptional business accomplishments. Steve Jobs made Apple Inc. the great company it is today as a result of his great understanding of strategic positioning, differentiation, manner of changing the industry’s structure and innovation. The major strategic planning by most organizationsinvolve discovering a problem, analyzing the basis of the problem, coming up with various solutions to the problem and finally formulating a group of initiatives that will be used in addressing the problem. Steve Jobs had a different strategic planning approach that worked for Apple Inc. and it would work for many organizations as well in present day industries. Steve Jobs focused on positive deviant performance in his organization that is the achievement of success that is extraordinary that goes beyond the outside observers and stakeholders’ expectations(Isaacson 2011). A positive deviance state is one in which the organization flourishes achieving optimal performance and at its best functionally. Steve Jobsdeveloped a strategic planning in which he embraced positive deviance, this enabled him to focus more on the strengths of the organization and this did not necessarily mean that he would ignore the threats and problems facing the organization.
Steve Jobs was a “strategic storyteller” that is he would frame Apple Inc.’s strategies as a story and he received several accolades for this ability. Steve had the ability to craft a captivating, comprehensible narrative that interweaved the organization’s value proposition and its implicit mission as Apple Inc.’s dominant strategy theme a good example of this was Apple’s 2009 annual report that stated its formal strategy. The strategy is not different from strategies from other computer and electronic industries but the aspect of adopting narratives that comprised of rhetoric, images and metaphors made it more interesting and encouraged the entire Apple team to work towards achieving their goals through the lively strategies and this differentiated Steve Jobs strategies from those of other organizations. The strategic stories made the stakeholders and the employees conversant with the Apple’s actions through setting a stage platform that offered futuristic and insightful descriptions of the manner Apple would respond to its macro-environment and compete in different industries.
Steve Jobs made organizational culture as his leadership support, unlike many leaders who do not consider organizational culture and instead they focus on financial resources, customers and their competitors. An organization’s culture is effective only if the culture is in alignment with the organization’s goals, environment, values and resources and it is important for the organizational leaders to recognize the manner in which they can incorporate culture to help in achieving positive deviance(Lashinsky 2012). Steve Job had a great ability to align Apple’s culture with the organization’s strategies, the culture was driven by the vision to create great products. Steve Jobs ensured that he made innovation a dominant value in Apple’s culture and it is still dominant today. Steve Jobs would reward his employees for their creativity, experimenting and risk taking and according to many interviews Jobs would mention that innovation was a norm in Apple’s culture. Steve Jobs created a culture in which employees would be encouraged to see their work as their calling, a calling that is important and the employees were proud of Apple and every employee that got recruited was incorporated into the company’s culture.
Steve Jobs had a strategic plan in which he made sure that he every opportunity that presented itself in the organization’s external environment. Steve Jobs had the ability to understand the external forces and trends and using this he would make use of it to create scenarios as well as formulate strategies that differentiated Apple from other organizations. Steve Jobs ensured that he positioned Apple in a manner that would enable it to align Apple’s strategies with external opportunities insights. Steve Jobs used strategic solutions to embrace opportunistic perspectives and he ensured that he pushed the stakeholders in creating the future. Steve Jobs saw his role as a leader as one that required him to create goods and services that consumers did not think they would require.
Steve Jobs had a great strategic planning and he created a strong organizational culture that lead to the great success of Apple Inc. among the electronic and computer industry. Despite his great strategic planning there are things that he did not incorporate in his strategic planning that if he did he would have achieved a greater success than he did during his time. Steve Jobs was hypercritical, stubborn and critical and to many he was tyrannical, demanding and unpredictable(Sander 2012). This character made him to derail the performance of the company since the employees at times were not aware of what Steve Jobs wanted due to his unpredictable nature, he should have otherwise made sure that he effectively communicated his intentions and plans to his employees to avoid confusion in implementing the strategies.
References
Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Lashinsky, A. (2012). Inside Apple: how America's most admired-and secretive-company really works. New York: Business Plus.
Sander, P. (2012). What would Steve Jobs do? : How the Steve Jobs way can inspire anyone to think differently and win. New York: McGraw-Hill.