Steve Jobs had more than his share of flaws and he possessed more than his share of genius. Reading Walter Isaacson’s recent and excellent biography of Jobs I am struck by the intuitive sense of lean, of flow, of simplicity, that he demanded from both the aesthetics and the technical workings of every product. You would be hard pressed to find an executive with a better sense of the interaction between the social and the technical.
The Lean Mind of Steve Jobs
When we think of lean our mind first goes to the workings of the Toyota factory. However, the principles of eliminating waste and achieving interruption free flow may be found at an even more profound level in the design of Apple’s breakthrough products and the intuition of Steve Jobs. Only nine percent of Americans today work in manufacturing and we might do well to turn our attention to the application of lean principles to less obvious endeavors such as product design and the use of technology.
From the design of the first Mac to the design of the iPad, Steve obsessed on their design. He understood what we wanted before we wanted it and that was his genius. We didn’t know we wanted GUI’s, an iPod or iPad, and even less did we think we would be attracted to a product by the elegance and simplicity of its packaging. He imagined the customer experience before we had experienced it. This is intuition, a zen appreciation for the movement of the hand and eye and the imperative to eliminate distractions to allow the mind of the user to flow from the first thought to the engagement in the utility of the device.
On the design of the iPad:
“As usual Jobs pushed for the purest simplicity. That required determining what was the core essence of the device. The answer: the display screen. So the guiding principle was that everything they did had to defer to the screen. ‘How do we get out of the way so there aren’t a ton of features and buttons that distract from the display?’ Ive (head of design) asked. At every step Jobs pushed to remove and simplify.†(page 514)
With the story of the development of each product it is easy to see why Jobs nearly drove those around him crazy. It was normal for him to walk around and look at the work of designers and engineers and immediately pronounce their work to be crap! And, a week later he would be gushing about the very same thing he labeled “crap†a week earlier. It was also normal that the work on the new product would be almost finalized, or finalized in the mind of others, and he would wake up in the middle of the night and realize why he was not comfortable with its design. The radius of the corners was wrong! Or, the ionized aluminum casing wasn’t exactly right. He would stop everything and have the entire team working on the product go back and fix things based on his simple feel for the design. Inevitably he would be proven right. And in every case it was a matter of the flow, the movement of the eye and mind from one interaction with the product to the next. It was about “lean†although he would not have felt the need to label it as such. It wasn’t the lean of the factory, but the lean of the customer experience.
I doubt that any CEO in the history of business has been as intimately involved in the design of breakthrough products. His contribution was not that of a traditional executive at all. It was total intimacy with the customer experience that was his contribution.
Costs vs. Value
The way lean is implemented in many companies today it is viewed as primarily a cost reduction tool. Eliminating work-in-process, reducing the need for space, and increasing output per employee are all the natural results of lean and all result in positive impact to the bottom line. Rarely was reducing costs the primary motivation behind Steve Jobs’ decisions. The decision to open retail stores provides a telling example.
Jobs obsessively wanted to control the entire flow of work from the design of chips to software, to the design of the case, the screen and the packing. This was the motivation for his decision to open Apple Stores. He and Ron Johnson spent many months designing the stores, developing prototypes and obsessing on every detail. From a traditional retailing perspective it made no sense. They didn’t have enough different products to fill a store. Most analysts thought it would be impossible to push enough product through the stores to justify the cost of the space. Gateway was failing miserably in their retail stores and Dell was selling direct to customers. But that is not how Jobs was thinking at all. He was thinking about the brand, the customer experience, the joy that the stores would create.
Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle was a close friend and Steve repeatedly invited him over to walk through his prototype store.
“On each visit Jobs prodded Ellison to figure out ways to streamline the process by eliminating some unnecessary step, such as handing over the credit card or printing a receipt. ‘If you look at the stores and the products, you will see Steve’s obsession with beauty and simplicity – this Bauhous aesthetic and wonderful minimalism, which goes all the way to the checkout process in the stores,’ said Ellison. ‘It means absolute minimum number of steps. Steve gave us the exact explicit recipe for how he wanted the checkout to work.†(page 386)
That is lean thinking at its best.
Most experts predicted failure. “Maybe it’s time Steve Jobs stopped thinking quite so differently,†Business week wrote in a story headlines “Sorry Steve, Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work.†The retail consultant David Goldstein declared, “I give them two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake.†Gateway’s stores were averaging 250 visitors per week.
On May 19, 2001 the first Apple Store opened in Tyson’s Corner Mall, one of the most expensive retail properties in the country. By 2004 Apple stores were averaging 5,400 visitors per week! That year they had $1.2 billion in revenue, setting a record in the retail industry. In July 2011, a decade after the first store was opened, there were 326 Apple stores. The average annual revenue was $34 million, and the net sales in 2010 were $9.8 billion. They were not only profitable, but they boosted the brand and reinforced everything else that Apple did.
The development of Apple stores and Apple products demonstrated an aspect of lean thinking that is not understood by most lean practitioners. It is not simply about cutting costs. It is about creating value in the customer experience by optimizing flow.
The Lost Opportunity of Bureaucracy
Many lean writers and practitioners have not been willing to step up to the plate and address the issues of organizational structure and systems. But, if you don’t you are not likely to be lean. The story of Sony’s lost opportunity and the development of the iPod proves the point.
Sony had a music division and contracts with a large number of the most popular bands and artists. They were a dominant force in the music business. They had another division that had created the Walkman, a personal device to carry and play music. They had a computer division producing personal computers. They even had software to sell music online. And, at the time, they realized that Napster and other free music download websites were destroying the profitability of their business. It was out of control. Within the Sony brand they had every piece required to solve the problem. However, the three big and powerful divisions fought among themselves and could not collaborate to develop a solution.
At Apple Computer there was a leader who understood disruptive technology. It wouldn’t be unfair to call Steve Jobs the Crown Prince of disruptive technologies. At that time Apple was merely a personal computer company. They produced no personal or portable devices. But, Jobs loved music. He understood that the personal computer could be the music hub. He personally led the charge to develop the iPod and there were no warring divisions within Apple. Jobs personally met with music royalty including Bob Dylan, Bono, the head of Universal, Sony and other music studios. He went to Japan and found the disc drive at Toshiba that could hold a thousand tunes. He developed an end-to-end solution that met the needs of the artists, the music studios, his own company, and most important, the customers who loved music! He practically lived with Jony Ive, the chief designer, whose aesthetic sense of elegant simplicity for not only the device, but even the packaging, created a unique brand image and advantage. The combination of iTunes software for your computer, the iTunes store, and the iPod, met the needs of all key stakeholders. It was a victory of seamless integration. It eliminated waste in every component of the music delivery process. It could only have been achieved by an organization devoid of silos and a leader who understood the advantage of a seamless experience by the end user.
In every instance of product development and marketing, Steve Jobs understood and demonstrated how eliminating waste from the flow of work and the flow of the customer experience results in the creation of value. Perhaps more than any other executive in our lifetime he understood the interdependence of the human and technical factors in product development and in their use. This is the lean that needs more of our attention.
Isaacson, Walter
Larry,
Thanks for another wonderful article. In reference to the infighting at Sony, maybe we need to wake up to a waste that may be larger than any of the 7 Wastes that Taiichi Ohno originally listed that of politics. The players are too focused on their personal agendas to achieve flow in the organization and deliver value to the customer.
‘It wasn’t the lean of the factory, but the lean of the customer experience’ your comment Lawrence is so wise. Your writing in this article, stood out to me for this very comment.
What would happen to health care if we viewed the patient experience in the same way ? How could the organizational architechture of health care be different if we looked at it from the patient journey ? How could flow, push and pull through the health care system not only improve effiecency but add value to the patient ?
What would health care look like if the patients needs were paramount, not the billing/ insurance cover ?
This is a wonderful article Lawrence, thank you for recognising how Lean has so many applications other than manufacturing, but most importantly confirming for me yet again where my passion for Lean is most fundamental.
Regards,
Deb Kinvig
Mark, I think you are right that the waste of infighting, the lack of common purpose and teamwork among managers is a huge source of waste. It deserves a lot more attention.
Deb, thank you. All of your questions about healthcare are good ones. There is a lot of work to be done there.
Hey Larry, such a great article and you are right, so often people forget that implementing lean is about the customer. Companies are so focussed on cutting costs that the poor old customer gets forgotten. When I read this article I thought about the IPad and Iphone and Ipod that I have. Every part of the experience from purchasing to using, was a pleasure. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to work with him, but in terms of providing value to the customer, that guy really got it.
On the LinkedIn Toyota Way discussion forum Jeff Liker made the following comment:
Jeff Liker I have a former student who Apple was courting and he made many visits to Apple meeting all the top executives, after Steve Jobs. I agree that Steve Jobs was a remarkable visionary and leader. He was unrelenting in his passion for exciting products, simple, visual user interface, the latest technology, and visually appealing products. He seemed not to care about how the products were made or about the development process itself. In lean we focus a lot on operational excellence and Apple has successfully put out breakthrough products that do not depend on operational excellence–build everything in cheap labor companies, ship large batches, no particular operating philosophy, go anywhere needed to get the right materials for the gorgeous product (e.g., the expensive solid aluminum block used for the new laptops), and the products will wow the customers enough to make money despite all these inefficiencies and despite quality glitches. As an Apple lover for about 25 years I have suffered through all the quality problems and technology ahead of its time (e.g., every time I buy a machine I have to get new adaptors to use ordinary computer projectors). Restarting equipment is usual. The first iphone had a pitiful camera and was missing even the most basic computer features like cut and paste. I put up with it all because of the useability and the total package of the product as designed. Much of the design decisions owed to Jobs and a few lieutenants who ruled with an iron fist. It was the American individualistic model of the tyrant with a vision using fear and intimidation to make all major decisions with no debate allowed. So it that is lean then why bother with trivial things like respect for people and continuous improvement? Why worry at all about manufacturing other then to do a decent job on making the product reasonably well? Why worry about the development process itself? Focus only on product features and cool appearance and everything else will take care of itself. Is that a lean company? Can that be translated to other industries outside of personal computer devices? It is even sustainable–look at the rapid loss of share of the smart phone market going on now.
My Reply to Jeff:
I think with each company and each leader there are things to learn, borrow or steal, and things it is best to leave behind. It is interesting that both Jobs and Ohno had the unfortunate insensitivity to how they treated others. I think we tend to focus on the more unusual aspects of a person’s personality or behavior. It is also true that Steve built great teams at Apple with very strong and creative engineers, designers, etc. While he was the ultimate judge of a products design, a lot of people contributed to making it happen and developing great operating software, graphics, etc.
It is worth noting that Tim Cook’s background is in supply chain management. That is what he did before he came to Apple. He and jobs dramatically reduced in process inventory, made many trips to Japan to observe Japanese factories, were passionate about the cleanliness of the plants, etc.
Steve was also very good about drawing on the knowledge and products of others. He had a long and ongoing relationship with Andy Grove, Larry Ellison and other icons in Silicon Valley. He got a lot of help from a lot of people, even going back to getting supplies for the Apple II from HP. Apple didn’t make many things but Steve was very smart about recognizing how he could use things, like Gorilla Glass from Corning, the hard drive that could hold one thousand songs from Toshiba, which they didn’t know what to do with, etc. So, he was constantly learning and pulling in people, knowledge and products that contributed to all it iProducts.
But, again, I am a great believer in learning what we can from each company or leader without assuming anyone has achieved perfection. It will be interesting to see what happens to Apple in the coming years. “