I just finished reading a very interesting book, Inside Steve’s Brain
by Leander Kahney. I highly recommend it to anyone who finds the rise
of Apple, or Steve Jobs in particular, interesting. I think there are
some great leadership principles that can be found in the book
(although some I would suggest are not transferable to church
leadership).
At the end of each chapter, Kayney provides a point form overview of
the principles Steve follows. Over the next few days, I’m going to list
some of them for you. If you’re a pastor or leader reading this blog, I
do suggest you grab a copy of the book and read it for yourself.
Chapter Three: “Perfectionism: Product Design and the Pursuit of Excellence“
Here are the lessons from Steve:
- Don’t compromise. Jobs’s obsession with excellence has created a unique development process that churns out truly great products.
- Design is function, not form. For Jobs, design is the way the product works.
- Hash it out. Jobs thoroughly figures out how the product works during the design process.
- Include everyone. Design isn’t just for designers. Engineers, programmers, and marketers can help figure out how a product works.
- Avoid a serial process. Jobs constantly passes prototype products between teams, not one team to the next.
- Generate and test. Use trail and error — creating and editing — to make an “embarrassing” number of solutions to get to one solution.
- Don’t force it. Jobs doesn’t try to conciously design a “friendly” product. The “friendliness” emerges from the design process.
- Respect materials. The iMac was plastic. The iPhone is glass. Their forms follow the materials they are made from.
I think Jobs goes too far with his demand for perfect products. The chapter talks about how his house is almost empty of furniture. The reason? He simply cannot buy something that he doesn’t consider perfect in design. So, he has almost no furniture or appliances in his house! He took his family on a two week process before buying a washer and dryer. They would spend hours each evening discussing things like functions, form, needs, etc.
While Jobs goes a little too far, I think that many in the church can fall a little too short in the pursuit of excellence. Often we accept something subpar simply because it is done by volunteers. We figure it’s not important to go the extra mile in making something better. That, to me, is a shame. I would rather do fewer things with excellence than too many things at a subpar level.
Next Up: Elitism.
