See the next World Magazine for my review of the new biopic on Steve Jobs. Bottom line: wait for Netflix. Secondary lesson, read the authorized biography and then you can skip the movie.
The real Steve Jobs was more interesting than either. Here are three lessons that one can learn from the life of Steve Jobs that go beyond the fact that eating certain foods will not leave you smelling good and not needing a shower. The biography tells enough stories about Jobs and hygiene that the reader is thankful the movie has no odor.
Steve Jobs was the Walt Disney of my lifetime: the visionary who does not make the product, but knew product had to be art and what the art must be. What was his vision:? He wanted a computer in the hands of everyone because he thought this would change the world.
He was right.
And this must be recognized: the man with a vision is not dispensable. There are many people who can put together a business plan, many workers, and plenty of pitchmen, but there are few people with a vision. Without a vision, the company, school, or business will perish. Jobs’ vision was not a particular project or sales figure. He did not live for the bottom line or the “percent of computers sold.” He wanted to change the world using computer technology by making it easy and ubiquitous.
He never lost sight of the goal.
You can replace the cartoonist, but you cannot replace Walt Disney. If you confuse a list of objectives with a vision, you will build the Newton and fail.
Yet failure is not the fatal problem if your team still believes in you. That is s second lesson to learn from Steve Jobs. People will do for love or vision what they will not do for even vast amounts of money. Jobs was . . . difficult . . . as a younger man, but he had a dream and his co-workers tolerated much that they would have sued in other bosses.
Some bosses confuse narcissism with vision and confidence. When the older Steve Jobs began to tame his inner demons and become a nicer man, he was no less brilliant. Jobs made bad products, or at least products that failed in the marketplace, but he never made a product he hated just to make money. His actions were always in service to the vision, not just to a company.
He was not willing to stay at Apple if Apple ceased to be a vehicle for the vision. When Jobs left, vision left and the company began to die.
Jobs was at his weakest when he ignored reality, but at his strongest when he ignored others’ perceptions of reality. Younger Steve Jobs could ignore even the strongest evidence in stupid and hurtful ways, including denying the obvious fact that he was the father of a child. Critics and friends said he had a “reality distortion field” and this ability caused some of his greatest failures and most hurtful decisions.
Yet Jobs could also detect when “impossible” meant merely “improbable” and by refusing to accept the word “impossible” get amazing results from his team. He never did the impossible, God Himself cannot do the impossible, but Steve Jobs showed that what many humans call impossible is just something very hard.
Many leaders will read that and feel justified in their hubris and reckless disregard of what the team can do and the limits of reality. This is to get the lesson of Steve Jobs’ life exactly backward. Steve Jobs never beat reality, but he did beat perceptions of reality. How can a leader tell the difference? When a leader ends up surrounded by hacks, time servers, or paper qualified people, he is defying reality and only surviving on those cashing the checks before the end. When a leader can still inspire loyalty, love, and finds truly qualified people willing to work above and beyond the job description, he is asking for the possible that others have mislabeled impossible.
Steve Jobs was not a good man, but he was a great one. That fact is itself a reminder that great gifts and vision do not always come together with great character. God help us to find leaders who see the truth and live good lives..
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