Promote your technical staff to management and allow accountability to extend beyond domains
I’ve always wondered what makes Apple the most valuable company. Just because the market cap is worth trillions, it doesn’t mean it’s valuable.
Being valuable on paper is like having good looks. People like looking at you but it doesn’t mean you offer anything of value to them or society. Apple brings in bucketloads of money, so in an investment sense, it is a very valuable cash cow.
But, it wasn’t until I read an article, about Apple’s organisational culture that I realised why Apple is so valuable. I’ve linked the article here if you want to read it.
Below I’ll outline from a workplace point of view why it’s good to consider a company’s organisational culture when investing.
Out With General Managers, In with Technical Managers
Apple doesn’t support the idea of general managers because how can an MBA lead a bunch of developers or engineers?
I’ve been trained as a data analyst but I’ve had to work for administrative managers. Such managers are great at reciting policy and foreseeing administration issues but they just didn’t get how analytics worked.
Everything they asked for was expected to come fast and magically — and for some reason always correct despite vague requirements.
Apple does something else. They promote their technical staff to management positions. This means if you’re an engineer at Apple then expect your manager to also have engineering experience.
The benefit here is better empathy from the leader and better productivity from the employees, which ‘hopefully’ leads to better company performance.
I can’t for sure if this is a true causation but at least from my experience, I work far better under a technical manager than I do under a general manager. There’s just less micromanagement because the technical manager just gets what you say and doesn’t fear the ideas you want to implement as blemishes to their reputation.
To note, I’m saying all of this based on what Apple tells me. I’ve never worked for Apple but Glassdoor reviews suggest that this culture of Apple is true. And, I know that I didn’t cover Apple retail.
Extend Accountability Beyond Domains
Look at an iPhone and everything about it is crafted to perfection or a standard that Steve Jobs would consider perfect.
I read a story that Steve Jobs wanted the first iPod to be beautiful both on the outside and the inside — I’m a software geek and not a hardware geek, so I’ve got no idea how you make hardware beautiful inside.
A specific point of the article mentioned earlier is that teams at Apple are expected to make impossible tasks possible. This means getting every team on board to make experimental features possible.
I’ve been through the software development cycle and the biggest issue is getting all teams united to address an impossible task. Usually, what I found the silliest was that it takes a deadline to get working software into production.
I’m not too sure why but my guess is that various stakeholders don’t think alike. I feel most of the time collaboration between teams is transactional e.g. If you deliver component A, only then will I give you component B. Having a deadline speeds up these transactions.
What Apple does is accountability without control. This means you get the project done even if you’re not responsible for other teams.
Personally, I’ve done this and have seen others do it too. Things get done faster and better this way and there are fewer politics too because you have someone who’s willing to put their head on the line to help you get your side down even if he/she doesn’t benefit from your success politically.
I think this is a competitive advantage because things get done and promises are met. Maybe not in the current year but at least eventually and probably with improvements too. The terrible development hell is avoided.
Conclusions
Now, I’m not saying go work at or invest in Apple because I’ve never worked there, so I can’t vouch if it’s truly a good place. Glassdoor and Indeed say it is but those are other opinions.
My focus was to look at Apple as a valuable company based on its company culture, and from the looks of it, I do think that Apple brings out a high-performing culture, which has led to many of its successes.
