As you will no doubt have become aware last week, Steve Jobs has resigned from his job as CEO of Apple. Again. Although judging from his recent medical history this one will be final. Cue lots of write-ups in the papers about what he has done for Apple over the years since he started the company but the bits that particularly interested me were all the comments about him as a person, not simply his achievements; partly because people are infinitely interesting but also because it links with the latest article I wrote about Values.
Jobs apparently was far from perfect in some regards but he certainly seems to have been a driven man with an uncanny ability to foretell the future and what people will want in terms of technology. On its own though that would have merely paid the bills as a fortune teller. Instead he also provided the products to infatuate a world, built from within his and Apple's value system. He was a perfectionist with an attention to detail that beggars belief - the one most quoted is of him phoning another Apple executive on a day off because he noticed that the Google icon was the wrong shade of yellow on the iPhone - getting the details right was apparently quite important to him!
He was also marked out by his pioneering emphasis on design in all it's fullness. He wasn't just satisfied with providing technology for public consumption; for him it was important that Apple married technology with the liberal arts, married with the humanities to produce results to make the heart sing.
He was ambitious and had a vision of changing the world that he held in the forefront to inspire and guide him - he even used it to lure others to his company. He is now compared to Edison as someone who has changed the world. He had his values, that attitudes that shaped him that were important driveer through everything that he did, he stuck to them and was successful in his own eyes.
In a speech in 2005 Jobs said, "Our time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice."
He is right. We need to work out what we stand for and value it. If you haven't already, download the free Values Pack to help you work through a process of nailing down what is important for you. Then live by it.
Jobs apparently was far from perfect in some regards but he certainly seems to have been a driven man with an uncanny ability to foretell the future and what people will want in terms of technology. On its own though that would have merely paid the bills as a fortune teller. Instead he also provided the products to infatuate a world, built from within his and Apple's value system. He was a perfectionist with an attention to detail that beggars belief - the one most quoted is of him phoning another Apple executive on a day off because he noticed that the Google icon was the wrong shade of yellow on the iPhone - getting the details right was apparently quite important to him!
He was also marked out by his pioneering emphasis on design in all it's fullness. He wasn't just satisfied with providing technology for public consumption; for him it was important that Apple married technology with the liberal arts, married with the humanities to produce results to make the heart sing.
He was ambitious and had a vision of changing the world that he held in the forefront to inspire and guide him - he even used it to lure others to his company. He is now compared to Edison as someone who has changed the world. He had his values, that attitudes that shaped him that were important driveer through everything that he did, he stuck to them and was successful in his own eyes.
In a speech in 2005 Jobs said, "Our time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice."
He is right. We need to work out what we stand for and value it. If you haven't already, download the free Values Pack to help you work through a process of nailing down what is important for you. Then live by it.
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