Doug Cartland's Four-Minute Leadership Advisory
Doug Cartland, Inc.12/06/2011

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I'm reading the Steve Jobs biography written at his behest by Walter Isaacson and published a couple of weeks after his death. I wasn't sure it would be a page turner, but it is.

 

In the genesis days of Apple in the 1970s, there was a question that arose as to whom was making the largest contribution to their fledgling business. Was it Jobs, the businessman, marketer and salesman, or was it Steve Wozniak, his partner, the engineer.

 

You have the creator of the product (Wozniak) and the organizer and seller of the product (Jobs). This is, of course, an old argument. Sales and operations have been at loggerheads since, I suppose, Cro-Magnon man was developing new tools.

 

At first blush, they seem to have competing interests. Sales wants the product how the customer wants it and when the customer wants it...which is generally now.

 

Ops is only so flexible and needs a certain amount of time to do its work well. Their often incredulous question to sales is, "You want what by when?!" Followed by, "It ain't gonna happen." Thus the loggerheads.

 

Each department's ego tends to snap at the other. Ops thinks highly of itself. "If there is no product," they say, "there isn't anything for the customer to buy."

 

And sales retorts, "If we don't sell it, dude, you don't get paid." (Okay, they probably seldom say "dude.")

 

Jobs and Wozniak had an equal partnership. Steve Wozniak's father was an engineer too, and he saw what he thought was an inequity.  

 

"Jerry Wozniak," Isaacson writes, "who exalted the value of engineers over mere entrepreneurs and marketers, thought most of the money should be going to his son."

 

The elder Wozniak revealed his mind to Jobs in brutal and blunt terms. He told Jobs that his contribution was nonexistent since he hadn't actually produced a product. Jobs was hurt and was ready to drop out. He told Steve Wozniak, "If we're not 50-50 you can have the whole thing."

 

In this case, the son was smarter than the father. Steve Wozniak understood Jobs' value. "If it had not been for Jobs," Isaacson writes, "he (Wozniak) might still be handing out schematics of his (circuit) boards for free...It was Jobs who had turned his ingenious designs into a budding business...He agreed they should remain partners."

 

Smart man. Later, his father came around.

 

The battle between the creator and the seller is as common as it is silly. It almost deep-sixed Jobs and Wozniak before we knew them.

 

What they found out is that, in reality, neither could survive without the other. In fact, sales and ops do not have competing interests at all. They have one interest and that is to serve the customer. If the customer is served well, they both win.

 

The most successful businesses are those who have competitive tension between sales and ops that constantly challenges them. It drives them both and makes each other better.

 

Sometimes, for example, it might be seen in sales pushing ops' creativity to the limit. Other times, it might be seen in ops saving a salesperson's credibility by insisting on realistic timelines and on functions that actually work.

 

But in the most successful businesses, this competitive tension ends in collaboration, not division. That's the truth any way you slice the Apple.

I'd love to hear from you. Reply to this email and let me know your thoughts.

 

Don't forget my Daily 10 Second Leadership Reminders on Twitter!  http://twitter.com/@dougcartland 

 

Doug

 

Doug Cartland, President
Doug Cartland, Inc.

 

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