Engineers can learn from Steve Jobs… life, love and crappy products.
With our engineering degree to help us land the jobs we need in our desired engineering company, it really wouldn’t be a problem to adjust in the real world, right? Wrong! Once we all enter companies, it’s not just about problem solving and developing new products. We also have to manage people and help make the company a success in general. There’s always a business side to our engineering jobs – whether we do it directly or not.
Engineers can learn from Steve Jobs (Source: Gigaom)
As you climb your way up to the company stairs, more difficult decisions will be made everyday, which includes product management. This would surely affect the future of the company and the people you work with. So before we proceed to making managerial decisions on how to sell products and services, how about we learn something from Steve Jobs’ advice to Nike.
Engineers can learn from Steve Jobs (Source: Giphy)
When Mark Parker was appointed CEO to Nike back in 2006, he called Steve Jobs and asked for his advice on how mix their digital strategy to the company’s products. According to Parker, Steve response really stuck with him:
“Nike makes some of the best products in the world. Products that you lust after. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.”
This advice definitely helped not only Nike but it also helped Apple: When Nike partnered up with Apple and launched Nike+, it became one of the most successful campaigns of the company in history. This advice also worked for Steve Jobs when he returned to Apple to save it from losing billions. Jobs focused on the good products of Apple and killed almost 70 percent of the company’s products, which help the company gain millions instead of losing billions a year after he got back in the company.
Engineers can learn from Steve Jobs (Source: Giphy)
Lesson learned: Once engineers become the next leaders who manage companies, they should focus on the good stuff the companies they lead are producing instead of selling so many products to the public.
