This week’s focus: The death of Steve Jobs has highlighted the huge impact that he had on the world. Under his direction Apple introduced personal computing and made it progressively easier to do (my mum has no idea how a PC works, but is totally at ease with an iPad), changed the way people buy and listen to music, and turned a mobile phone into a computer that you carry in your pocket. Irrespective of its size versus its competitors, Apple has always been a leader, and has relentlessly raised the bar in its areas of expertise.
If you’re not leading, you’re not succeeding. Like Apple your organisation may be a product leader, but you could also be a cost leader (Ryanair), a convenience leader (Amazon), a service leader (John Lewis) or a solutions leader (IBM).
You can choose how you lead, but you have no choice whether or not to lead. In what ways is your business a leader?
Off the record: Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine) by Bob Dylan (one of Steve Jobs’s favourite records)
Time will tell just who fell
And who’s been left behind
When you go your way, and I go mine