Steve Jobs and the designer as CEO
In my quest for a grand unifying theory of great design, there’s always been one nagging issue that I can’t shake. I call it “the Steve Jobs problem”.
The problem is that while every textbook and design studio example of design innovation shows a collaborative, bottom-up process of user research and design iteration, Apple bases its successful design work largely on the vision presented by its CEO. Jobs is such a unique figure, and his company so uniquely structured around him, that it’s really not a repeatable solution. Where it’s been tried, we often see examples of people who act like Steve Jobs, but almost universally lack his unique talents.
Yet Apple has had astounding design success with this model. They have mostly the same tactical design team they did before Jobs’ return; back then they were designing the uninspiring [Quadras](http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_quadra/stats/mac_quadra_840av.html), [Performas](http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/computers/pf6200.html), and early PowerMacs. Immediately upon Jobs’ return, they came up with the original [iMac](http://www.theapplecollection.com/design/macreleased/iMac072000.html). Coincidence? Jobs is also credited with the [sunflower-inspired iMac v2 concept](http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020114/cover2.html); and while Phil Schiller [came up with the idea for the iPod scroll wheel](http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2006/10/71956?currentPage=all), the overall experience, tagline, and everything else consumed “[100% of Steve Jobs’ time](http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2004/07/64286?currentPage=2)”. Jonathan Ive is a great stylist and seems to work well with engineering, but you can’t separate Steve Jobs from any of the great designs that Apple has created.
If nothing else, Jobs is responsible for elevating the influence of the design team within Apple. As CEO, he could have chosen to empower every business group equally–design, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, etc–or to choose another group, like marketing, to have the final say. But he chose design, and today, they are the ultimate authority. Every other group in the company is forced to bend over backward to accommodate even trivial changes from the design team.
But is it really true that to deliver great product design [“CEOs must be designers, not just hire them”](http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2007/06/ceos_must_be_de.html)? I’m still not sure. A friend mentioned the other day that she thought Apple was successful because of Steve Jobs’ *vision*–not his person. Is it possible to create a great, focused, shared vision from a collaborative process as well as a top-down one?
The second link I ever posted to my blog was Donald Norman’s quote, [“You don’t do good software design by committee”](http://web.archive.org/web/20021020033851/http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opinterview.jsp?id=ns23631). He continues:
> You do it best by having a dictator. From the user’s point of view, you must have a coherent design philosophy, and I don’t see how that could come about from open source software. The person who’s done it best is Steve Jobs, and he’s well-known for being a tyrant.
Theoretically, a process that elevates the ideas of many experts has the potential to create a better vision than that of any single person, but examples abound of groups that squandered their opportunities to collaborate. Are their failures a result of the method or the specific process? In other words, is collaborative design vision inherently flawed, or is it possible to do it in ways that work–perhaps even better than the singular vision of a genius?
At work we’re still convinced that it is possible, and we’re working on ways to make it consistently great. It’s much messier than following a single person’s plan, but if it has the potential to create better results–as we think it does–as well as empowering and ennobling people, then it’s certainly worth a shot.
The *synthesis* of pulling together disparate opinions into a focused vision then becomes the true task. Designers are certainly trained in synthesis of design directions, but adding strategic business and technical directions to that list often pushes us beyond our comfort zone. It does seem that a CEO–or whoever calls the shots at a company–needs to synthesize not just business and technical concerns, but also design directions.
My current answer to “the Steve Jobs problem” is to turn it on its head. Rather than the CEO being the *source* of your design innovation, they become the arbiter. CEOs should source the best opinions from the people they work with and create a cohesive direction from them–just like designers sourcing the best design opinions available, and presenting unified directions to the CEO.
For a CEO to choose a strategic path that includes design, they will need experience and skill in choosing designs–but not necessarily in creating them. I don’t think CEOs need to invent great designs, but it sure helps to recognize them.