Your employee, Tim Cook. (Image via CrunchBase)
It's absolutely true. And that fact gives you tremendous power.
That's a fundamental truth I took away from a wonderful new post by Forbes.com contributor Steve Denning, titled "The Single Best Idea in Management in the World."
Steve explains with a personal story: He was always a PC guy and never liked Apple products. His mind began to change when he first got an iPod and warmed to it. Later he bought an iPhone, but he gave it to his daughter who craved it, and he switched back to a cheap non-smart phone. Suddenly he missed the iPhone terribly. Its replacement "lacked all the things that were so convenient, so easy and quick, that I thought just happened automatically. None of that was there. So I was very irritated and after I threw away my cheap substitute and got an iPhone."
He explains:
When I threw away that cheap hone and bought an iPhone, I was signifying that I am the boss of Apple. I have the power to decide whether to use the cheap phone or the iPhone. Apple has to respond to that. . . .
Fifty years ago, that couldn't have happened. Fifty years ago, I was stuck with whatever phone the phone company gave me. Take it or leave it. Fifty years ago, big firms were in charge of the marketplace. Now the buyer is in charge of the marketplace.
So when Apple puts out a mediocre mapping app, that disappoints me and everyone else, then Tim Cook has to get down on bended knee and apologize to me, and promise never ever to do that again. He knows that I am his boss. He knows that if he does that again, I might fire him. So this is a massive, massive shift in the marketplace."
That massive shift in the marketplace, which consists of your having taken it over yourself, is the larger point of Steve's article. The job of a company like Apple is to make you happy, or, as Steve likes to put it, to "delight" you. If it doesn't do that, it's in trouble. That's the whole difference between Apple and Microsoft or Nokia. That's what sets apart Salesforce as such a great business. Running almost any kind of business today, you've got to recognize that fact and embrace it and make it central to all you do.
So enjoy your power, over Tim Cook but also Steve Ballmer and Marc Benioff and all the other captains of industry. Also make sure you look at your own business the same way—and above all, read Steve Denning's article.
