I haven’t had the opportunity of reading “Becoming Steve Jobs”, the new biography of Steve Jobs that went on sale on Tuesday, but the spirited efforts by the Apple brass to dismiss an earlier authorised biography as just a sloppy rehash is somewhat over the top. Apple’s CEO Timothy D Cook has led the charge by saying that the earlier book -- “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson, which was published shortly after Jobs’ death in 2011 -- did a tremendous disservice to the Jobs he knew. Apple in fact issued an official statement saying the new biography “captures Steve better than anything else we’ve seen”, as it apparently presents a kinder, gentler portrait of the company’s former boss.
Among other things, Cook & company may have been offended by this story in Isaacson’s biography which has earned Jobs the epithet of “control freak’s control freak” – a man who would like to have a say in everything even when death is knocking at his door. The story goes like this: After a liver transplant in 2009, Jobs tried to persuade nurses to bring him a selection of oxygen masks from which he would choose the design he liked best. The nurses could get a mask on him only after he passed out of consciousness due to heavy medication. Since no one, not even Apple, has accused Isaacson of fabricating stories, it can safely be assumed that it was a true incident.
What Cook and his team mates are forgetting is that Isaacson’s book was the result of over 40 interviews Jobs gave to the author, as well from some interviews he won because Jobs had prevailed on people, including his family members, to cooperate with the book. Yes, it does show Jobs as a control freak, but what’s wrong with that? Isaacson, in fact, has been more than fair to the man by giving readers a great peek into Jobs’ personality in the preface itself. Although Jobs cooperated with him, he asked for no control over what was written, he put nothing off-limits and encouraged people he knew to speak honestly.
That’s what fearless leadership is all about. Isaacson has shown while Jobs was capable of rudeness, he had learned how to become an unparalleled strategist and manager and his impatience was part and parcel of his perfectionism. More importantly, he was also successful in forging rewarding professional relationships with those he respected, as he believed in the "Beatles concept," where each member of the iconic band had talents that complemented each other.
The Apple brass is hopelessly wrong in saying that Isaacson failed to capture this aspect of Jobs’ personality. For example, read this paragraph from Isaacson’s essay in Harvard Business Review. To a question on his tendency to be rough on people, Jobs didn’t deny the charge but said, “These are all smart people I work with, and any of them could get a top job at another place if they were truly feeling brutalized. But they didn’t.” And as he battled his final illness, Jobs was surrounded by an intensely loyal cadre of colleagues who had been inspired by him for years, apart from his immediate family.
It is true that Jobs could tolerate only A-grade people – a result of his desire to work with only the best. It was his way of preventing what he called “the bozo explosion,” in which managers are so polite that mediocre people feel comfortable sticking around. It’s important to appreciate that Jobs’ rudeness and roughness were accompanied by an ability to be inspirational. He infused Apple employees a belief that they could accomplish what seemed impossible. All of this has been captured well in Isaacson's book.
The Apple brass has every right to throw their weight behind the new book, though their enthusiasm is a tad surprising considering that the company has traditionally played things pretty close to the chest. But they would do a great disservice to Jobs’ memory if they continue to trash his first biography. What Isaacson did was to paint a complex, nuanced portrait of a man with all his warts, without taking away the plain fact that Apple is what Apple is today because of Jobs’ strategic and aesthetic arrogance, charisma and capacity for work.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
