http://tinyurl.com/reviewMy500DaysAtApple
My 500 days at Apple
An insider look at Gil Amelio's(the than CEO) stay at Apple
The Book is : On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple - Gil Amelio and Willian L. Simon
Excerpts :
02 - Strategy is all about : Its figuring out the location, direction and priorities.
03 - Perseverance is often the essential ingredient in success.
04 - Insanity = doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different outcome.
06 - Smile is the second best thing to do with your lips.
07 - Regardless of the consequences, we should always try to do the right thing.
08 - If you start with what is honorable rather than what is profitable, you can hope to achieve both honor and profit.
09 - Experience is the comb that nature gives us after we are bald.
10 - Miss once and you look bad, miss twice and you look incompetent
A slogan given by Rob Reiner : A computer so easy, as adult can use it."
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A book directly from the mouth of Apple's 5th CEO, Gil Amelio.
We always believe that a book is nothing but a written proof of a success story. Especially these kind of books always tell how people have climbed up the ladder to FAME and PROSPERITY. But this book is totally opposite. It tells how unsuccessful Gil Amelio was.
Shocked !!! aren't you? Don't worry nobody is foolish enough to write his/her so called death story. On the contrary, we can say that, this book covers Gil's unfortunate efforts to turnaround Apple. Not only because of his incompetency, but also for reasons which can be well justified from the book. Some reasons are not directly presented, but are needed to be extracted from the text ; may be as a conclusion.
The book commences with some background story on Gil, during his tenure at National Semiconductor. National Semiconductor is one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers. Then it moves to how he was called upon at Apple. What all consideration and decision making went from Gil's side? The journey continues to the final day, the day on which he was FIRED from Apple. Hence the name of the book is given, "ON THE FIRING LINE" .
If you think from a typical point of view, it is just a story telling book. But lot of things can be extracted from the book. It concludes in a totally different way. Fundamentally, what secernate this genre of books is, the author directly share their experiences. Whether Good or Bad, Successful or Unsuccessful- it helps a lot. At least they do not confuse us unlikely the Management Gyan books.
These author are bold enough, to share with us their feelings, which helps the world in not making the same mistake at least, if not more than that.
The book brings out that Apple in spite of being one of the most innovative companies, at management level was a mess. All hindrances that Gil had to face, tells nothing but how disorganized Apple was. Though innovation matters, its not the only thing that run a company. Management needs to be strong enough. As we all know, it is the Top level which has to have a neutral mindset, irrespective of any type of low and mid level. Any business needs to make profit, need sales, marketing, operations, etc.., in short a management perspective. Any domain expert needs a proper management guidance, otherwise iPod must not have been so successful.
Gil gives examples of various product that didn't do well, though the research put behind them was unmeasured. He gives a particular example of Power Book 5300 (series of Laptop from apple), which was one of he biggest disaster in apple's history. Only having a good design/concept does not sell. Either there should be a demand, or the product should create its niche in the market. To sell even a path breaking product we need a good strategy or a Rational.
So it goes like this, either it should be BOTTOM UP(on Demand/Pull) or it should be TOP DOWN(push/create demand). For such product based companies, according to me, it must be top down. The flow goes as follows :
1 - First it begins by innovation/discovering/inventing a concept.
2 - Develops it into a wonderful product, probably a breakthrough. Of course for this they have to do some home work, like market research(which was supposed to materialized by Lee Iaccoca at FORD).
3 - Then it develops a sales strategy and marketing concept.
4 - For these you need Finance for funding things and Operations to put things into action.
5 - Finally on the top of everything, we have to have a central control named CEO. It is said that CEO is synonymous to risk taking.
Here Gil gives reasons for each and every designation we have came across till date. Say , why do we need a CFO, or why we have to create a post like Sales manager etc... Apple becomes a great example, for proving that only having one of the finest engineers of the market, cannot earn you profits.
One thing that should appreciated here is, Gil had the courage to join Apple, at a stage where he was at the peak of his career at National Semiconductor. This exhibits that, money is not the only thing you should look for in your career, especially when you change a job. Sometimes even to gain experience, you need to take the risk.
Then there is some technical issues, discussed, while developing apple's range of Personal Computers. What were the issues regarding selecting Operating System(OS is the main software that runs your PC)for e.g. Windows, MAC? At that period of time they were not having any fault tolerant system. They were loosing on customers. How did he made a deal for OS with Bill Gates? In the book you will also see the other side of Steve Jobs(the founder member of Apple computers, besides Steve Wozniak). You will be shocked with the reality about Steve.
Overall, it is a complete package. It presents various aspects of business. At the end it says the same thing, to run an organization we need TEAM WORK. We should have a single Vision and Goal.
Vision comes out of clear GOAL. This vision should be percolated to the lowest level of the hierarchy. People should feel and live in the vision of the company. We should not forget the core values. And all this can be achieved by a good leader. Hence "LEADERSHIP SHOULD PREVAIL".
We always believe that a book is nothing but a written proof of a success story. Especially these kind of books always tell how people have climbed up the ladder to FAME and PROSPERITY. But this book is totally opposite. It tells how unsuccessful Gil Amelio was.
Shocked !!! aren't you? Don't worry nobody is foolish enough to write his/her so called death story. On the contrary, we can say that, this book covers Gil's unfortunate efforts to turnaround Apple. Not only because of his incompetency, but also for reasons which can be well justified from the book. Some reasons are not directly presented, but are needed to be extracted from the text ; may be as a conclusion.
The book commences with some background story on Gil, during his tenure at National Semiconductor. National Semiconductor is one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers. Then it moves to how he was called upon at Apple. What all consideration and decision making went from Gil's side? The journey continues to the final day, the day on which he was FIRED from Apple. Hence the name of the book is given, "ON THE FIRING LINE" .
If you think from a typical point of view, it is just a story telling book. But lot of things can be extracted from the book. It concludes in a totally different way. Fundamentally, what secernate this genre of books is, the author directly share their experiences. Whether Good or Bad, Successful or Unsuccessful- it helps a lot. At least they do not confuse us unlikely the Management Gyan books.
These author are bold enough, to share with us their feelings, which helps the world in not making the same mistake at least, if not more than that.
The book brings out that Apple in spite of being one of the most innovative companies, at management level was a mess. All hindrances that Gil had to face, tells nothing but how disorganized Apple was. Though innovation matters, its not the only thing that run a company. Management needs to be strong enough. As we all know, it is the Top level which has to have a neutral mindset, irrespective of any type of low and mid level. Any business needs to make profit, need sales, marketing, operations, etc.., in short a management perspective. Any domain expert needs a proper management guidance, otherwise iPod must not have been so successful.
Gil gives examples of various product that didn't do well, though the research put behind them was unmeasured. He gives a particular example of Power Book 5300 (series of Laptop from apple), which was one of he biggest disaster in apple's history. Only having a good design/concept does not sell. Either there should be a demand, or the product should create its niche in the market. To sell even a path breaking product we need a good strategy or a Rational.
So it goes like this, either it should be BOTTOM UP(on Demand/Pull) or it should be TOP DOWN(push/create demand). For such product based companies, according to me, it must be top down. The flow goes as follows :
1 - First it begins by innovation/discovering/inventing a concept.
2 - Develops it into a wonderful product, probably a breakthrough. Of course for this they have to do some home work, like market research(which was supposed to materialized by Lee Iaccoca at FORD).
3 - Then it develops a sales strategy and marketing concept.
4 - For these you need Finance for funding things and Operations to put things into action.
5 - Finally on the top of everything, we have to have a central control named CEO. It is said that CEO is synonymous to risk taking.
Here Gil gives reasons for each and every designation we have came across till date. Say , why do we need a CFO, or why we have to create a post like Sales manager etc... Apple becomes a great example, for proving that only having one of the finest engineers of the market, cannot earn you profits.
One thing that should appreciated here is, Gil had the courage to join Apple, at a stage where he was at the peak of his career at National Semiconductor. This exhibits that, money is not the only thing you should look for in your career, especially when you change a job. Sometimes even to gain experience, you need to take the risk.
Then there is some technical issues, discussed, while developing apple's range of Personal Computers. What were the issues regarding selecting Operating System(OS is the main software that runs your PC)for e.g. Windows, MAC? At that period of time they were not having any fault tolerant system. They were loosing on customers. How did he made a deal for OS with Bill Gates? In the book you will also see the other side of Steve Jobs(the founder member of Apple computers, besides Steve Wozniak). You will be shocked with the reality about Steve.
Overall, it is a complete package. It presents various aspects of business. At the end it says the same thing, to run an organization we need TEAM WORK. We should have a single Vision and Goal.
Vision comes out of clear GOAL. This vision should be percolated to the lowest level of the hierarchy. People should feel and live in the vision of the company. We should not forget the core values. And all this can be achieved by a good leader. Hence "LEADERSHIP SHOULD PREVAIL".
Excerpts :
01 - Underlying process for carrying out transformation :
The process revolves around financial issues, business practices, and people issues and includes elements such as achieving financial stability first, creating a vision that defines success, learning what the end customer values and delivering that, and establishing metrics in order to "measure your way to excellence."
The process revolves around financial issues, business practices, and people issues and includes elements such as achieving financial stability first, creating a vision that defines success, learning what the end customer values and delivering that, and establishing metrics in order to "measure your way to excellence."
02 - Strategy is all about : Its figuring out the location, direction and priorities.
03 - Perseverance is often the essential ingredient in success.
04 - Insanity = doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different outcome.
05 - Comment for Gil by Steve : I certainly couldn't have done that and i don't know of anyone who could have, other than you. It was one of the brilliant business maneuvers I've ever seen.
06 - Smile is the second best thing to do with your lips.
07 - Regardless of the consequences, we should always try to do the right thing.
08 - If you start with what is honorable rather than what is profitable, you can hope to achieve both honor and profit.
09 - Experience is the comb that nature gives us after we are bald.
10 - Miss once and you look bad, miss twice and you look incompetent
A slogan given by Rob Reiner : A computer so easy, as adult can use it."
--
trackback :
my blog
my profile
my microblog
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