Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Should management styles be based on best practices?

This title from wired says it all - "How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong"

It's hard to see how any of this would have happened had Jobs hewed to the standard touchy-feely philosophies of Silicon Valley. Apple creates must-have products the old-fashioned way: by locking the doors and sweating and bleeding until something emerges perfectly formed. It's hard to see the Mac OS and the iPhone coming out of the same design-by-committee process that produced Microsoft Vista or Dell's Pocket DJ music player. Likewise, had Apple opened its iTunes-iPod juggernaut to outside developers, the company would have risked turning its uniquely integrated service into a hodgepodge of independent applications — kind of like the rest of the Internet, come to think of it.

(Emphasis mine) This paragraph reminded me of an earlier post of mine.

This is a very light read but talks about an interesting situation in the valley. Apple's success in the market implies that while there might be a high correlation between egalitarian management, operating styles and success it not the only or guaranteed route to success.

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