I’ve forever been a huge fan of Apple, its people, its products and in particular the massive values it stands for as a company. If you’re a frequent reader of One Life Success then you’ll know I’m an entrepreneurial person and thus, naturally for me every bit of Apples values and culture fall very close to home. 

Steve Jobs had been the big pusher behind the values of Apple since the very beginning and it was those values which he’d instilled in it that made the company so successful from the get go.

However these values began to diminish and the company fail after Steve’s departure from the company in the late 1980’s following a disagreement with the board.

He returned in the 1990’s, took the company back to its early values and with himself at the helm and its good old values back intact, led Apple back to success at the top.

Steve Jobs sadly passed away in 2011, leaving his company behind in the hands of Tim Cook. But unlike following the previous departure of Steve from power, Apple has continued to succeed in previous years with Tim Cook refusing to relinquish the many values Apple has always stood for.

In this post I’d like to talk about just a few of the many values Apple stands for today and how they have not only created success for Apple, but how they could be implemented to create success in you and your projects too.

Innovation & Creativity

We’ve talked a lot about innovation & creativity in the past here at One Life Success, because both myself and Aimee view them as such important things.

The art of innovation & creativity is truly what keeps the world spinning round, developing and getting better, and without the creative entrepreneur or innovative thinker, the development of the human race ‘would’ stop. Apple knows this.

They have a passion for innovation and are consistently improving their products to enrich the lives of their customers around the world. They aim for markets of contribution, for them the many technology sectors, and aim to have an impact in them.

“The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.” Said an Apple Inc. statement many years ago.

Innovation through creativity and collaboration (something we’ll touch on more later on in this post!) is at the heart of Apple and they know how to do it well. Steve Jobs once said, “Innovation comes from people meeting in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea.”

Obsessive Focus

Apple has constant focus on specific markets, products and details. They’re an obsessive company, who obsess about the minor detail in every product, which only they can see because of their focus.

As I already spoke about in the last value of innovation, Apple aims for markets where it believes it can make significant contributions with its teams. But it doesn’t just stop there, once it’s decided on its target market or product, it begins an obsessive focus on it until the product is all but gone.

Tim Cook once spoke about Apple’s focus, saying “We have to make sure, at Apple, that we stay true to focus, laser focus – we know we can only do great things a few times, only on a few products.”

Tim Cook is the current CEO of Apple and this just demonstrates his value of focus right from the very top. Focus is key to the success of anyone working on a project or plan; you have to focus really well to do well.

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all.” Said Steve Jobs a few years ago, “It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

He said, “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.”

Simplicity

“Simple can be harder than complex.” said Steve Jobs, “You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Simplicity is a key value at the heart of Apple; it’s simple in its management, simple in its values and simple in its approach to product design. Jonny Ive, the key designer at Apple has previously spoken about their view of simplicity at Apple, regarding it as the beauty of their products.

He says he loves that anybody; even a child can pick up an iPhone or an iPad and instantly understand how to use it because of its simplicity. Simple thinking and also in Apples case, simple design is the key to moving mountains. And that’s form the mouth of Steve Jobs himself.

Collaboration

Apple’s a hugely collaborative company, something I touched on in its first value of Innovation and Creativity. Steve Jobs once spoke about the collaboration at Apple calling it “the biggest start up on the planet.”

He said, “Theirs tremendous teamwork at the top of the company, which filters down to tremendous teamwork throughout the company.” “We’re great at figuring out how to divide things up into these great teams that we have and all work on the same thing, touch bases frequently and bring it all together into a product.”

Collaboration and specialisation is a key factor to success, especially when collaborating with a great team; something Steve once called a group of A-players. It’s something I’ve only come to realize myself lately, but if you can outsource parts of project your not so good at to someone who is, you can come out with a much better finished product in the end.

Collaboration is not a zero-sum game of innovation, but can instead be of a huge benefit to the quality of any project you collaborate on if done properly.

Nothing Less than Excellence

“Excellence has become a habit.” Said an Apple earning call statement on the 18^th January 2011. They strive for nothing less than excellence at Apple and allow nothing lower out of the bag.

Apple has always been a premium company of excellence with world changing and people enriching products. “Apple has a culture of excellence that is, I think, so unique and so special. I’m not going to witness or permit the change of it,” previously said Tim Cook.

Jobs once said that, “Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected,” but at Apple it is expected and that’s why they produce the results they do as a team. We should all expect excellence in our lives and accept nothing less.

The acceptance of only excellence has done well for Apple, so why not let it do well for you to?

In Conclusion

There can be no disagreement; Apple’s key values as set out above have only done good things for the company, its people and its customers. These 5 values, instilled in the company by Steve Jobs from the very star have brought Apple a long, long way and have done some extraordinarily great things for the lives of millions of people around the world to.

So now ask yourself, why can’t it bring you and your project that far, in that direction too?

Wrote by Joe Brown  -  Follow Me   -  Leave Your Thoughts Below!