APPLE VS IBM – CHANGE VS CONSERVATISM

Contrasts in management styles

I remember so well in the 80’s when I worked as an art director in Coral Gables and befriended this very nice fellow who worked at the Coral Gables IBM office, we would often have lunch and talk about the events of the day and oftentimes he talked about his employer.

Carlos was always impeccably dressed in a dark suit and white shirt, he told me that at IBM they didn’t even allow for pastel color shirts or suits that were not in the dark color spectrum. He also would tell me how terribly oppressive and conservative IBM was. He would often criticize this conservative, burocratic aspect of his company saying that it stifled innovation and by repressing individuality it created an atmosphere of conformity and disinterest. Everyone working in his office just came in to work begrudgingly and put in their 8 hours but nothing more…there was no extra effort, not one ounce of creativity and management would admonish those deviating from this pattern of conformism.

Enter Steve Jobs who passed away yesterday and founded APPLE. The winds of change were in full hurricane force by the late eighties and what seemed to be a deviation from all accepted conservative business models brought Apple in direct competition with the big boys.

While other companies languished in the morass of conservatism, there were some in the computer technology field that encouraged individuality and creativity and those were the companies that eventually took their share of the market leaving IBM behind and suffering gigantic losses.

My take on all this is that being conservative does not pay off, that change is inevitable and those who welcome change or are instruments in bringing it to others will be the successful ones such is the case with Mr. Jobs of Apple.

His philosophy fits so well the need for us all to follow our hearts and not tradition, to become creative individuals rather than sheep that follow. Here is what he said at the 2005 Stanford University graduation:

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart...

...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. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary”

~ Steve Jobs
(2005 Stanford Commencement Speech)

I think what made IBM great was innovation and great ideas from inventors being incorporated into machines the public and business world needed. But your see, they soon forgot this premise and innovation was gone from the IBM business model and that is precisely what almost caused it to go out of business.

When you think that not only IBM have an early start (1880’s) but they held the lead in all that had to do with business and mechanisms until the advent of the computer…and IBM took refuge in a cocoon of conservatism while other innovators left IBM far behind. They were doing great with the IBM composer typewriter and then they introduced the bulky and expensive PC.

Though not a spectacular machine by technological standards of the day, the IBM PC brought together all of the most desirable features of a computer into one small machine. It had 128 kilobytes of memory (expandable to 256 kilobytes), one or two floppy disks and an optional color monitor. And it had the prestige of the IBM brand. It was not cheap, but with a base price of US$1,565 it was affordable for businesses

I think also that what happened to IBM can be applied to what has happened to America; by embracing conservatism and conformity, America is falling behind when competing in the marketplace. By insisting in maintaining the status quo instead of embracing change, America is putting itself at a disadvantage. We were great as long as we embraced and celebrated diversity and meritocracy…the moment we stopped that (enter Goldwater-Reagan) we began a decline that could have been avoided. CONSERVATISM IS DESTRUCTIVE AND WRONG!

SOURCES: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM