A life well choreographed

Source :LLOYD MATHIAS:BL:Oct 7,2011

What Steve Jobs asked John Sculley when he wanted to recruit the Pepsi hand in 1983, was this: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?” Sculley did join Apple and subsequently fired Jobs from Apple. It's Jobs' genius that he came back to Apple and did indeed change the world.

The oft-quoted and immortal question is testimony to the purpose with which Steve Jobs pursued his passion. It was a manifestation of the supreme confidence of the CEO, entrepreneur, innovator and salesman par excellence that was Steve Jobs.

The mobile handset industry– which I was a part of – was keeping close tabs of the iPhone launch. There was enormous anticipation for the product, coming as it was from the game-changing Apple. Everyone knew that it was due in three to four months.

 Yet, a lot of handset manufacturers considered that it would be very difficult for a company like Apple to succeed in this space considering how closely handset makers had to work with telecom service providers. In the largest handset market, the US, service providers defined specifications to manufacturers and were marketing the bundled handsets themselves. All that changed soon.

The first few users of the iPhone helped redefine the category; service provider AT&T signed an exclusive deal with Apple for the iPhone. The success of the iPhone changed the face of the smart phone business and importantly how people used their phones.

It's no different from the Mac or iPod or the iPad. Computers existed before the Mac. MP3 players existed before the iPod. The concept of a tablet existed before the iPad. It was Jobs' ability to see things in a manner that consumers could not that defined him – that understanding of human psychology, of latent expectations, and the ability to create enhanced consumer expectations, and then exceed them. Not impossible, as Jobs has shown, in a life well choreographed – up to the succession of Tim Cook who unveiled the next offering from the Apple stable just a day before Jobs passed away.

Readying the Future for an Idea

I have not seen the kind of outpouring that has accompanied the passing away of Jobs for any other business leader, anywhere in the world. Apple is clearly not the largest. Microsoft touches more people through numerous applications around the world than Apple does. There have been great scientists and inventors and innovators – they have not attracted this kind of a mass tribute. That begs the question - why?

The answer lies in the emotional chord that Steve Jobs and Apple struck with consumers. Apple successfully got people to become emotional about their experience intuitively. And at the heart of this phenomenon was Jobs, the man who dramatically unveiled the next thing that changed consumers' lives for the better. Steve Jobs created and nurtured a cult out of an idea. It was an idea whose time was yet to come when it was conceived. Jobs also incubated a future that welcomed the idea.

And importantly, Jobs did all this even while staying away from the corporate mainstream. A quote of his reflects his view: “It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.”

But success does not come without failures and the accompanying criticism. Whether it was the Pippin or Apple TV, they didn't change the game like the better-known Apple products have. Success or failure, Jobs believed in doing things exactly the way he wanted to. He was a man who had the long-term vision coupled with the courage to steadfastly spurn the compromises arising from pressures on short term growth that is so pervasive today.

Some say it's almost dictatorial; others say they perceptibly remain true to who they are – people who re-define categories with superior user experience. India, for example, is one of the few markets where iPhone sales lag that of BlackBerry.

One of the legacies that Jobs leaves behind is about who the next visionary will be. Who will give consumers the things that they don't know they need? Knowing Jobs, there's a whole universe out there that his team is working on. In delivering the next big things alone can Apple pay a fitting tribute to the man who created the future that consumers evolved to embrace.

(The author is President – Corporate, Tata Teleservices. The views are personal.)