From the morning ledger lessons

Steve Jobs left us with valuable lessons for business and for life. His creativity, his obsession with detail, his imagination, his drive, his emphasis on teams and his autocratic style, his feel for the consumer and his refusal to cater to consumer demands — contradictory elements that combined to make a visionary.

No matter your industry or role, there’s much to learn from Steve Jobs. Here are some of his lessons.

Passion. Asked what advice he had for entrepreneurs in a 1995 Smithsonian interview, Jobs said that to succeed you really need passion – “because it’s a lot of work. I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

Focus. Jobs channeled his own passion when he rejoined Apple, moving with “speedy intensity” to turn the company around, this Fortune article from 1998 says. He focused on core products, slashed inventories and revamped distribution so only authorized resellers could sell Apple products.

Teams. In this 60 Minutes interview from 2003, he said the Beatles were his business role models because they balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. “You know, great things in business are never done by one person.”

Follow your heart. And if you need inspiration to act boldly, read Jobs’s commencement address at Stanford from 2005: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

Jobs’s best quotes. On technology, design, business, the future, and life. Impossible to pick just one – worth a read.


http://blogs.wsj.com/cfo/2011/10/06/the-morning-ledger-lessons-from-jobs/