Let me thank you, my valued readers, for your encouraging response to ?From the Discomfort Zone? as it enters its third, without-a-break year. I was preparing articles from my recent African sojourn, when the world?s all-time hero died on October 5. I stopped. Without paying homage to the greatest contemporary inventor who continuously created discomfort to change the world, how could I proceed? Steve Jobs broke our old habits, made us experience things differently, whether in corporations or in society. His discontinuity with mediocrity is the ultimate example of creating discomfort.
Apple has acquired many nuances. Adam and Eve bit the forbidden apple in Catholic mythology, making it an object of desire. The falling apple was profound realisation for Newton?s discovery of the gravitation theory, while Apple is the record label of the Beatles, the world?s biggest entertainers. ?Apple of my eye? is what we want to be for our loved ones. Aside from assigning values and imagination to apples, we find lots in the market coming from different countries. When organic, we pay a higher price for their supposedly being more natural than others, when generic, the apples get sprayed with pesticides or can be genetically transformed. But Jobs? Apple is obsessively focused. It has proved his purity as an inventor, designer, disruptor, entrepreneur and lover of humanity.
I wrote about his Fifth Avenue, New York, Apple store (https://indianexpress.com/news/big-apple-to-steves-apple/619482/0), how knowledgeable salespersons were inducting both scruffy-looking below-teens and a Louis Vuitton bag carrying sophisticated woman to Apple products. I was curious to see what car Ms Sophisticated left in, and sure enough it was Rolls Royce. Her expensive bag and car give her show-off value, but a $50 iPod Shuffle in the pocket of a basic income person and a billionaire is invaluable for the joy it brings to both. Steve Jobs had the ingenuity to create real socialism between the rich and poor with his products which both hunger for. Yes! Fifth Avenue should become Jobs Apple Avenue. His apple is Job Apple.
The Western inventive character and discipline prioritises on how to go against nature, to have control over nature. In my industrial product design experience in the West, I?ve learnt about increasing the functionality of an engineering product to reduce human effort. A few years ago I created my engineering design framework to be ?Reduce Effort, Increase Comfort.? If you look at the evolution of human society?s living betterment, you will find that functional improvement has been prioritised in every day-to-day life product. The ultimate reference of my ?Reduce Effort, Increase Comfort? is the inventive power of Job Apple. Steve Jobs unlocked the apple from being forbidden to becoming officially permissible. You may or may not believe in Adam and Eve?s Garden of Eden, in religion or God, but you have no choice but to believe that Job Apple is the universal religion of human rights. Jobs was extremely conscious about connecting his inventions to everybody, both for their entertainment and livelihood.
Across all continents, the CEO?s function is defined as the engineering of finance, human capital and PR. But Job Apple has proved that the CEO?s job is different, others should manage a corporation?s transactional jobs. Jobs first broke the practice of ivory tower research and development (R&D) where doctorate intellectuals have no connect to end-users. So, I can say he transformed R&D terminology to research for differentiation. The common man has to perceive extra benefit in the products. Jobs established that the ideal CEO should have unbelievable thirst to intercept human need and desire beyond anybody else. So first, he should be sensitive to human society?s hidden desires; secondly, know the performance of his product/service in any competitive environment; and thirdly, create a simple story to sell the product/service to the masses. Unfortunately, most CEOs today are primarily engaged in fixing a positive quarter result, and not aligned to these three elements. Job Apple also proved that the digital world does not need rocket science invention, but an instant leapfrog on vision. The vision has to be very practical to fill the consumer desire gap, and inspire whole team to work in an unconventional way to break the mold. The CEO should empower himself with the ability to take risks, to create the hunger for self discomfort. Only such action can catapult a loss-making company in 1997 as Apple was in the year Jobs rejoined it, to becoming the world?s most valuable company in 2011. Today, Apple is No 2 in global market capitalisation.
Twentieth-century history has multiple examples of invention driven by struggle, especially from the effect of the two World Wars and how to get rid of Adolf Hitler?s devilry. Now, when democracy largely reigns, the prevailing jargon is take and deploy the opportunity. But how? You cannot deploy opportunity in a merry-go-round that?s merely turning. You need to create discomfort to bring discontinuity on the monotonous, boring aspect of business. So Jobs delivered a new, non-forbidden apple to the world. As a CEO or wanna-be CEO, you can eat the Job Apple, and empower yourself to the alternative way that will enormously connect to the masses. Vive la Discomfort Zone!
The last eight years when Steve Jobs fought his pancreatic cancer were the most critical for Apple and him. While everyone speculated about the timing of his death, Jobs didn?t hesitate to deliver his best creative work. What mental power and courage! The digital technology movement will surely unearth something new in future, but Job Apple will always remain the summit of creating a difference for the masses to enjoy. Steve Jobs not only contributed to creating an all-new digital delivery, he connected people emotionally to their digital devices. He fulfilled their unstated desire of having total finger-tip control, giving fingers an ingenious freedom to drive a new type of pictorial language in the digital world.
Shombit Sengupta is an international creative business strategy consultant to top managements. Reach him at http://www.shiningconsulting.com
