Great Steve Jobs Video (& Transcript) from 1. Continuous Improvement. Hat tip to Brent Brewington (@Brent.
Books Autobiographies/memoirs. 2013: The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs by Chrisann Brennan. 2006: iWoz by Steve Wozniak. Biographies and histories. 2015: Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender and Rick.
Hat tip to Brent Brewington (@BrentBrewington) for sharing a link to this amazing video via Twitter. Starting at about 7:54 into the video, Steve Jobs talks about continuous improvement. Here is a little more background about. Steve Jobs was a damn dirty hippie. He didn't much like to shower or wear shoes. He believed his diet kept him from getting stinky, not true apparently. In fact he was quite odd and obsessive about his diets, he. Library Card Number or EZ Username Last Name or EZ Password * Phone (Last four digits) *Not required for EZ Login. Known for: Pioneer of the personal computer revolution with Steve Wozniak: Board member of. Indeed, what at first glance seems like more wandering for the barefoot hippie who dropped out of Reed College to hitchhike around India, is in truth the equivalent of Steve Jobs attending business school. In other words, he.
Brewington) for sharing a link to this amazing videovia Twitter. Starting at about 7: 5. Steve Jobs talks about continuous improvement. Here is a little more background about the video, shot in 1. Jobs was 3. 5 years old and CEO of Ne. XT Computer. I admit I was surprised by what I heard Jobs say.
Steve Jobs cofounder and innovator of Apple Computer died on October 5, 2011 from complications of pancreatic cancer, he was 56 years old. Jobs made a huge impact on the culture of America with these techy gadgets that.
I have this mental image of him as a top- down, leader- as- expert genius who had little regard for front- line employees… but what he says in the video is golden. Skip ahead to 7: 5.
What Jobs says in that section of the video (for those who can’t watch at work)… with my comments in italics. Steve: [7: 5. 5] In most companies, if you’re new and you ask, “Why is it done this way”? The answer is, “Because that’s the way we do it here,” or “Because that’s the way it’s always been done.” And in my opinion the largest contribution of much of this quality thinking is to approach these ways of doing things, these processes, scientifically, where there is a theory behind why we do them, there is a description of what we do, and most importantly, there is an opportunity to always question what we do. What a timeless phrase that is, “we’ve always done it this way” and how powerful it is to challenge that. [8: 2. And this is a radically different approach to business processes than the traditional one, “because it’s always done this way.” And that single shift is everything, in my opinion. Because in that shift is a tremendous, optimistic point of view about the people that work in a company.
It says, “These people are very smart. They’re not pawns. They’re very smart. And if given the opportunity to change and improve, they will. They will improve the processes if there’s a mechanism for it.”Listen to that again – people are smart. They’re not pawns. Given the chance to improve, they will.
I couldn’t agree more. I really cringe when I hear leaders say things like, “People hate change.” No, they hate top- down solutions that are forced on them. Given a chance to identify problems and implement solutions, through a process like Kaizen, they’ll do it and they’ll be quite enthusiastic about it.[9: 0. That optimistic humanism I find very appealing.
I think we have countless examples that it works. I love that phrase, “optimistic humanism.” I also have countless examples that this works (as Joe and I have documented in our books). As I was explaining to a client a few weeks ago (the medical chief of a institute in a well- known academic medical center), the reason we practice Kaizen is that we’re OPTIMISTIC that things can be improved and that people are creative. We don’t point out problems just to bitch and moan and complain… we do so because we believe we can make things better. Interviewer: [9: 1. Part of this way that this optimistic humanism is expressed in companies are the things to which the people who control corporations say yes, to requests and recommendations that are made to them.
What kind of things are you saying yes to, here at Ne. XT, as a result of Dr.
Juran’s teachings or exposure that you might never have said yes to before? Steve: [9: 4. 0] Your question actually capsulizes what’s wrong. The whole philosophy behind these newer quality approaches is that people shouldn’t have to ask management permission to do something that needs to be approved. Authority should be vested in the people doing the work to improve their own processes, to teach them how to measure them, to understand them, and to improve them.
Amen to the idea that employees shouldn’t have to ask permission. They should have the right to improve their own work processes. This is a core component of the Lean and Kaizen mindsets.
We can help people better understand their work (something I do as an outsider by teaching basic Lean principles). We can set goals as leaders, but let employees decide how to measure their progress and decide what improvements to make.[1. And they should not have to ask for permission to improve their processes. A lot of the philosophy behind this quality stuff carries with it a flattening of the traditional hierarchical organization and a distribution of authority, to the people who are best in a position to decide what should happen to improve these processes, the people doing the work themselves. The permission that’s given because of this quality philosophy is the permission to not have to ask permission. Again, I was really surprised that he said all this.
Did his mindset change in the last 2. Was Apple managed like this, at all? Would the 2. 01. 0 Steve Jobs have been surprised by what 1. Steve Jobs said? If you’d like to post a comment, scroll down beyond the transcript: I had a transcript made from the video, which I’m happy to share below (with emphasis mine). Interviewer: [0: 0.
Steven or Steve? Steve Jobs: [0: 0. Doesn’t matter. Steven P. Jobs is fine. Steve Jobs is fine. Interviewer: [0: 0. And your [inaudible 0.
Steve: [0: 1. 4] President of Ne. XT Computer, Incorporated.
Interviewer: [0: 1. What has your life come into contact with that of Dr. Joseph Juran’s? Steve: [0: 2. At Ne. XT, we decided to try to figure out what all this ballyhoo about quality was about, so we started looking into a lot of things — came in contact with a lot of people. Dr. Juran was one of the few people that I met that had a real down- to- earth approach to it, that didn’t think that quality was the second coming, but he approached it much more scientifically, and that resonated with the engineers and other technical people here at Ne. XT, as well as the executives.[1: 0. Dr. Juran’s visited us several times always wearing his characteristic bow tie.
We’ve learned a lot from him. Interviewer: [1: 1. What are some of the things that you’ve found most valuable? Steve: [1: 2. 5] The things that we’ve learned most from Dr. Juran are to look at everything as a repetitive process, and to instrument that process, and find out how it’s running. Then start to take it apart and re- put it back together in ways that dramatically improve its effectiveness in a very straight- forward way, no magic, no pep rallies.[1: 4.
Just looking things directly in the eye, seeing them as repetitive processes, and re- engineering them. Most of the quality stuff, as I’ve understood it, is really a lot about re- engineering your repetitive processes to make them much, much more effective — combining them, eliminating some, strengthening others. Interviewer: [2: 0.
It’s easy to see why broadcasters would want to do a program on Madonna or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Why should the American people be interested in seeing a documentary on this old guy with a bow tie in Dr.
Juran? Steve: [2: 3. America’s in a tough spot right now.
We’ve forgotten the basics. We’re so prosperous for so long that we took too many things for granted and we forgot how much work it took to actually build and sustain those basic things that were supporting our prosperity.
Things like a great education system, things like great industry.[2: 5. We are now faced with relearning those things, going back to the basics and relearning them. That’s why Dr. Juran is so valuable, because he is standing right on the basic heart of the matter of why we are being out- manufactured, why we are being out- planned by Japan.[3: 2.
It is not because the Japanese are tricking us, it’s not because the Japanese are better intellectually. It’s because we are being out- planned, we are being out- strategized, we are being out- manufactured.
There is nothing that can’t be fixed. But we’re not going to fix it up here. We’re going to fix it by getting back to the basics of what we need to do. Interviewer: [3: 5. There aren’t an awful lot of living legends around these days. When Joseph Juran walked in through these front doors, what struck you about Dr. Juran, the person?
Steve: [4: 0. 9] I had an opportunity to meet a few great people in my life and they all have had one characteristic in common, which is that they treat everyone the same, whether it’s the janitor or the president of the company, whether it’s the president of the United States or someone in a rural slum.[4: 3. They treat them exactly the same. If a question is asked, they will directly answer that question to the best of their ability. The look in their eyes is exactly the same and that was certainly true of Dr. Juran.[4: 4. 2] Any question asked was the most important question that could have been asked at that moment as far as Dr.
Juran was concerned. The caring and straightforwardness that he expressed toward every individual made a big impression on us.[4: 5.
Of course, his awesome knowledge of the subject. But beyond his awesome knowledge of the subject, the way that he viewed people so optimistically that even the most foolish question was addressed with the greatest desire to transmit what he had learned in his life. Interviewer: [5: 1. Everybody now certainly uses quality, whether it’s in the advertising or in internal literature, American flag, Apple Pie, Motherhood [inaudible 0. It’s almost the price of admission in lots of industries.[5: 3. And yet so many corporations, large businesses in particular, have such a hard time getting things moving, seeing results, getting people somehow facing the right direction. What holds them back, do you think?
Steve: [5: 4. 7] It’s funny. The group of people that do not use quality in their marketing are the Japanese. You never see them using quality in their marketing. It’s only the American companies that do. And yet if you ask people on the street, which products have the best reputation for quality, they will tell you the Japanese products.[6: 0.
Now, why is that? How could that be? The answer is because customers don’t form their opinions on quality from marketing. They don’t form their opinions on quality from who won the Deming Award, or who won the Baldrige Award. They form their opinions on quality from their own experience with the products or the services.[6: 2.