Work Babble

Steve Jobs: Work and Life Advice from a Teen Idol

By Carmine Gallo

Author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

Teenagers have named Apple CEO Steve Jobs the entrepreneur they admire most. In a recent Junior Achievement survey, Jobs beat out a list of high profile celebrity entrepreneurs including Oprah Winfrey. Steve Jobs has plenty to teach teens and young adults, many of whom are facing the worst job climate in decades. Here are five life and work lessons Steve Jobs would offer young people today as they enter a tight job market and an uncertain future.

Follow Your Heart, Not the Joneses. From his earliest interviews it was clear that Steve Jobs was more motivated by creating great products than by how much money he would make selling those products. Jobs once said that "being the richest man in the cemetery" didn't matter to him; rather "going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful, that's what matters to me." Far too many people are unsatisfied and unsuccessful in their careers because they chose a path that made their neighbors or friends "rich." Typically, however, followers are too late to cash in. Their life is a never-ending stream of disappointments and frustrations. "You've got to find what you love," Jobs told Stanford graduates in 2005. "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. You somehow already know what you truly want to become."

Make a Dent in the Universe. Choose to be world-class at whatever path you choose. Steve Jobs is said to have a "reality distortion field" around him, meaning he has an ability to convince nearly everyone of everything. This "RDF" stems from a commitment to change the world. People seek meaning in their lives and when they meet someone who taps into this basic human craving, they find it intoxicating. In 1983, on a balcony overlooking New York's Central Park, Steve Jobs turned to then PepsiCo president John Sculley, who Jobs was trying to recruit to join Apple, and asked, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?" Sculley would later write that the question would hit him like a punch to the gut. You will never inspire anyone unless you're inspired yourself. Find something that inspires you to pursue higher levels of achievement.

Sell the Benefit. Potential employers don't care about you as much as they care about solving their problems. Steve Jobs never introduces a new product without a clear explanation of the problem it solves. For example, when he introduced the iPhone in January, 2007, he spent time explaining the limitations of the existing SmartPhones. These limitations included a stylus which was awkward and tended to get lost and the keyboard which took up one-third of the space on the phone. The iPhone, Jobs argued, would solve those problems. Young people should approach job interviews the same way. The fact that you graduated with honors doesn't tell a recruiter how you're going to solve the company's problems. Do research on the company, its competitors and its challenges. Make the connection between your accomplishments in school and how that experience will help the company achieve greater success.

Articulate a Twitter-Friendly Vision. Steve Jobs has a vision for every product he introduces. The vision can easily fit in a 140-character Twitter post. For example, when Jobs introduced the MacBook Air in 2008, he simply said, "It's the world's thinnest notebook." If that's all you knew about the computer, it would tell you a lot. As a young professional, your personal brand is the most important brand of all. Treat your brand like an Apple product and ask yourself, "If I had to describe my brand in a Twitter post, what would I say?" For example, long before I could claim Fortune 500 companies as clients, my business cards read: "The communications coach for the world's most admired brands." Those sixty-one characters gave my brand a vision. What vision do you have for your personal brand?

Master Life's Most Important Skill. Steve Jobs is considered the greatest corporate storyteller on the world stage. His keynote presentations are hot tickets and leave his audience with a sense of awe and excitement. Communicating the vision behind his brand is one of Steve Jobs' greatest gifts. But he works at it. Jobs spends hours and hours rehearsing every facet of his presentations. He makes it look effortless but that polish comes after weeks of grueling practice. Every day, millions of PowerPoint presentations are made and every day, millions of people watching those presentations are bored to death. Master speaking and presentation skills to set yourself apart.

For more than three decades, Steve Jobs has been creating products that enrich people's lives. But in some ways, his greatest achievement could be in what he has taught us about work and life: expect excellence from yourself, create great experiences for your customers, and follow your heart.

©2009 Carmine Gallo, author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

Author Bio
Carmine Gallo, author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience, is a presentation, media-training, and communication-skills coach for the world's most admired brands. He is an author and columnist for Businessweek.com and a keynote speaker and seminar leader who has appeared on CNBC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC.com, BNET, RedBook, Forbes.com, and in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Investor's Business Daily, as well as many other media outlets. Gallo lives in the San Francisco Bay area and is a former vice president for a global, top-ten public relations firm.

For more information please visit www.carminegallo.com.

-Carmine points out some good points about find one’s purpose and driving to that vision no matter what. It’s what successful entrepreneurs know and it guides all aspects of their business life. To “think different” as Apple coined, you have to be ready to constantly adapt to changing conditions whether it’s economic or cultural. The bottom line is to be a change agent stay true to your goals.

Life Long Learning May Be Different From Experience

Learning is one of the most interesting parts of life.

For many, learning is a passion, an essential part of their lives while for others it can become a burden.  There used to be an old saying about "going back to school to finish my education". That kind of thinking supposes that one can actually finish learning.  This point of view is dangerous in today's business environment.

In our rapidly changing 24 X 7 X 365 world, life long learning is a survival tool.  It is no longer an option.

In our Leadership Development work, we regularly tell groups of people from our clients "if everyone is not on a continuous learning binge, someone in this group will be unemployable in their current position within 3 years due to changes in the world".

This may sound overly dramatic bit it is true -- we see it every day.

For those who say things like "I've got 20 years experience in this field", what they may indeed have is one year's experience, 20 times.

Be careful about becoming obsolete.  Practice what James Higgins book title suggests.  INNOVATE OR EVAPORATE.  Here are a few ideas:

 

• Be intentional about learning
• Learn something every day
• Align learning with you passions
• Bring joy to learning and re-learning
• Make time for learning
• Apply your learning in your everyday life
• Enjoy the journey

 

How are you doing on practicing continuous learning?

About Glowan
The Glowan consulting Group was formed in 1993 on the premise that individuals and organizations needed more that just pre-designed, prescripted "training" to meet their human development goals. Organizations and our societies are changing at a rate never seen before in our experience and we need tools, techniques and support systems to meet those new challenges. Glowan has been meeting those needs via our broad and deep offerings of Leadership and Management Development Services and Products. Visit www.glowan.com for more information.

Latest report shows positive job outlook

By Tony Deblauwe

Many of the economic indicator surveys you come across these days point to an ongoing bleak outlook for hiring into 2010. Speaking from a technology job sector point of view that prediction may not be as accurate. I’ve been speaking with many folks in this sector and while the increases won’t be off the charts, there will be moves made to start hiring. In some cases, hiring positions lost due to layoff earlier in the year, but in many cases, its new jobs.

One positive report was released today by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) which reported that the number of employers planning to hire workers over the next six months exceeded the number expecting job cuts for the first time since the recession began in December 2007. In many cases companies are building more capital spending into their strategic planning process.

NABE said job losses "appear to be slowly abating" with the percentage of firms cutting payrolls falling to 31% in the quarter from 36%. The percentage of firms adding jobs doubled from an all-time low of 6% to 12% in October.

What that means for new job seekers, or those who’ve been waiting patiently for things to change, should take stock in preparing a solid job search plan for the next six months. Organizations like Career Directors International provide career planning tips from experts as well as leads to professional resume writers.    

The 6 C’s: Your Leadership and Performance Standard

While there are no fixed formulas for becoming an effective leader, there are 6 vital areas that a leader can use to improve his or her effectiveness and drive performance excellence.

1. Context: People do their best work when they can link their efforts and contributions to a bigger cause.  Ensure that your team understands your firm’s core strategies; leverage the power of a clear vision to provide high-level context and constantly involve everyone in providing input back into strategy.

2. Connection: Many studies show the important human need to be connected and to feel valued and appreciated.  As a leader, pay attention to your people; empathize with their issues and give them the respect of asking for their input and listening to their concerns. You will promote strong performance if you establish a personal connection with your team members.

3. Credibility: People and teams do their best work for leaders that they respect.  Our research indicates that many leaders shoot themselves in one or both feet by not backing words with actions, by not treating people with respect and by not paying attention.  Treat every encounter as an opportunity for you to strengthen your credibility.

4. Conditions: Your job is to create an environment in which your people can succeed.  It’s as simple as surrounding yourself with great individuals and then working unceasingly to do everything possible to ensure their success. 

5. Customer Connection: Whether your customer is internal or external, we all do our best work when we are armed with a clear understanding of how our efforts will enable our customers to succeed.

6. Communication:  Providing feedback is your most powerful communication and performance tool.  Ask great questions that help you understand at a deep level, and when it is time for you to be understood, provide context and link your communications to vision, strategy and customer.

Regularly take stock of how you are doing.  Ask for feedback and accept coaching from where ever it is offered.

About Glowan
The Glowan consulting Group was formed in 1993 on the premise that individuals and organizations needed more that just pre-designed, prescripted "training" to meet their human development goals. Organizations and our societies are changing at a rate never seen before in our experience and we need tools, techniques and support systems to meet those new challenges. Glowan has been meeting those needs via our broad and deep offerings of Leadership and Management Development Services and Products. Visit www.glowan.com for more information.

Be Quick, But Don’t Hurry

“Be quick, but don’t hurry,” is a famous quote from John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach of UCLA. In other words, do the right things, but learn how to do them quickly. Author Andrew Hill recounting his playing days with Wooden, says, “Life, like basketball, must be played fast—but never out of control.”

In today's competitive global workplace, lack of quickness results in competitive disadvantage while hurrying causes mistakes. Balance is one of the keys to agility. “John Wooden’s genius was in helping his players find and maintain that razor’s edge between quickness and hurrying. The epitome of global competitiveness is forcing your competition to hurry.

Your team can turn out a new product in 9 months—they are fast, but they don’t hurry. They balance on the edge, fast, but not too fast. Through experience, knowledge, and skill, they know what pace they can sustain and turn out a high-quality product. A competitor looks at your 9 month development cycle time and says, “we can do that.” But they can’t—they don’t have the knowledge, skill, or discipline.

When management forces their team into trying to keep up a pace that they really can’t sustain. They hurry. They make mistakes. They fall short in feature implementations. They cut corners, blame others, lose their concentration, become highly stressed, and end up with disappointing results.

Sports teams are constantly trying to get the competition to play “their” game. A fast-break basketball team tries to force the competitors into running up and down the court—forcing them into playing a game they aren’t comfortable with—forcing them to hurry, forcing them into errors because they are playing over the edge instead of on the edge.

The agility that comes from a balance between hurrying and quickness comes from the ability to both create and respond to change in order to profit in a turbulent business environment.  Of these two aspects of agility, creating change is the most powerful.  The companies in front, the one's creating the changes as opposed to responding to the changes, has a leg up on competitors.

The winners are quick. Losers are forced into hurrying.

Being quick without hurrying is about exploration, innovation, accelerating development speed, and quality. They are about being quick, but not hurrying.

About Glowan
The Glowan consulting Group was formed in 1993 on the premise that individuals and organizations needed more than just pre-designed, prescripted "training" to meet their human development goals. Organizations and our societies are changing at a rate never seen before in our experience and we need tools, techniques and support systems to meet those new challenges. Glowan has been meeting those needs via our broad and deep offerings of Leadership and Management Development Services and Products. Visit www.glowan.com for more information.