I read a very interesting article today in the New York Times regarding the corporate culture of Apple. The article, titled “Apple’s Obsession with Secrecy Grows Stronger” outlines what the author insinuates is a cultural norm within Apple, to maintain near absolute secrecy regarding their inner-workings. Among other evidence to support the theory, a former employee is quoted as saying “ “They make everyone super, super paranoid about security- I have never seen anything else like it at another company.”
Of course, this seems very legitimate and in fact, prudent, given the way new and innovative ideas/technology can be stolen these days. However, it would seem Apple takes it to the extreme, striking myself (and the author) a bit odd in our current “share everything”, “meet me on Facebook” society.
The article goes on to describe the private nature of Mr. Steve Jobs himself. Certainly, anyone who keeps up with the world of business even a little bit, is aware of the attempt to keep Jobs’ recent health issues a secret. Of course, this ultimately proved impossible, and now some are even accusing Apple of a intentional campaign to mislead the public. One could make all kinds of conjecture on Jobs’ motives, and many have, but I doubt we’ll ever know exactly. Nor does it really matter in my opinion.
What is through all of this, is that Jobs’ is a very private guy, both personally and professionally. I for one agree wholeheartedly agree the author that this style, value, behavior, or whatever you want to call it, has indeed shaped a key part of the overall culture at Apple.
In giving public speeches regarding corporate culture, I advance the opinion that approximately 70-90% of any company culture can be identified by investigating the CEO at a “core values” level (assuming they aren’t a new CEO hired from outside the company). My point is the CEO ultimately creates the reward system within the organization and they do so according to their core values. Put simply, what they punish, tolerate, reward, ignore etc… becomes the standard of behavior.
This nearly always sparks a question, and sometimes a vehement disagreement from someone the crowd (which is exactly why I say it). “That cannot be possible in a large company” an audience member once yelled out. ”It just doesn’t make sense that one person can ultimately dictate culture for thousands of employees”.
My rebuttal is to describe high profile examples like the hiring of Bob Nardelli at Home Depot, or Carly Fiorina at Hewlett Packard, or even William McInerny at our local icon, 3M. All three of these are large companies who had strong, even iconic, cultures that began changing the day these CEOs were hired. Of course, they couldn’t do it completely by themselves, but as CEOs often do, they changed out key managers for those who were more closely aligned with the new vision. These new lieutenants helped ”implement” the new cultural dynamics and way of doing business.
I don’t know if the ”70-90%” statement above is accurate, I say it more to make a point than anything else. However, one thing I do believe wholeheartedly, is that culture is driven by core values, and the higher level the leader, the more effect their core values have on the overall culture. I’ve seen it too many times to believe anything else is possible.
Going forward I’ll be adding Jobs & Apple to my list of examples.
Mike Frommelt