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Sad to hear the news about Steve Jobs---he was a true visionary and will be missed at Apple. But in reading all of the commentary and articles about him, I have found a few lessons that we can all learn from to achieve excellence in our own little way. Hope it will inspire you!
Deborah
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Selective Steve Commandments
that I think are relevant for small business (borrowed liberally from a terrific infographic in The Daily Beast and Newsweek)
Never Stop Studying:
I love the urban legend of Steve Jobs that tells about his going to the administrators at Reed College in Oregon and convincing them to let him study there without paying and without getting credits. He just wanted to learn stuff. How many of us felt that way about our education? Never stop being curious or learning stuff, even if it isn't directly relevant to our job or work.
Be Ruthless: When something doesn't work, kill it. It is said that Jobs is as proud of closing down bad ideas as he is of the good ideas that get to market. You might notice that I've returned to Constant Contact as my email handling system. The other one just never worked right, so I went back to the tried and tested system. Be brave and ruthless when something isn't working.
Simplify: From the very start, Apple's reputation is to make things easy and intuitive from the consumer standpoint. (Jobs was famous for being his one one-man focus group). Make your product or service dead-easy for the client to understand and use.
Tap the Experts: You can't do it all yourself. So hire well when you need the outside help---whether it be for graphic design, board advice or what have you. Pay for competence and get on with business. (could that mean hiring a coach?!)
The article lists six others that I am not sure are quite as relevant for microbusinesses (like keeping teams small---under 100 people!) but I figure if a few nuggets of the Steve Jobs approach can help us focus our efforts as small business owners, let's borrow ideas from the best!
What other lessons are worth drawing from Steve Jobs? Please share!
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