The goal is to have you reflect deeply on what you have learned and experienced in the class. What value did you derive, what lessons did you learn, and/or what realizations did you come to because of

STEVE JOBS: ONE LAST THING

Steve Jobs: One Last Thing

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MGMT490-71

5/29/2020

“Steve Jobs: One Last Thing” Summary

The movies “Steve Jobs: One Last Thing” is a documentary that described the creation of Apple Inc. It explains what the company went through until it became a successful multibillion-dollar company under its founder Steve Jobs. It all begun where Steve Jobs was introduced to Steve Wozniak by his childhood friend Bill Fernandez who was a fellow technology enthusiast. Bill did not understand that introducing them to each other would later lead to the formation of the most successful tech companies. The first meeting would lead to the first Apple "computer." This was a motherboard that was equipped with CPU, textual-video chips and RAM. They presented this great innovation to the Homebrew Computer Club. Later, Wozniak and Jobs decided to form a company while seeking out help from Ronald Wayne, who would then give back his 10 percent share of the company, and he says it was with no regrets.

Steve Jobs believed in the statement that "good artists create, great artists, steal." His trip to Xerox headquarters gives him one of the most crucial ideas to create a Mac mouse. He first developed a prototype based on the roll-on ball and butter dish. Dean Hovey was assigned to develop the mouse's design, and he took the ball out and placed it below the dish, and voila. This was how the Apple mouse was developed. Steve needed help with a company that was rapidly growing after experiencing success with Apple. Jobs hired John Sculley, who was Pepsi executive, to help him in managing the company. However, two years after Sculley joined Apple, the profit started declining, and Apple began falling apart, and Steve Jobs was blamed for this. Yet, he was never fired from Apple but was ostracized, and demoted.

Steve Jobs would later resign in 1985 and sold his six million shares for a very poor price. He thought Sculley betrayed him and thought that Sculley was involved in plotting to have him eliminated from Apple. The company would later beg him to return after the company failed and though that Steve could help in ensuring the positive growth of the company. The company was a hundred days from going bankrupt when Steve went back to the company. It was his positive approach and a substantial investment by Mike Markkula that enabled Apple to get back on to feet.

I think the primary purpose of this documentary was primarily to describe the great life of Steve Jobs and his contribution to the creation of one of the most successful companies around the world in terms of brand image and capital. Jobs successfully create Apple with Steve Wozniak, who was his great friend. However, I think the title is significantly deceiving because the movie is generally about the development of Apple. The documentary rotated around the struggles faced by Apple until is t became successful. However, these movies got its title to form something that Job always said at the end of any presentation. He would always tell the audience that he got one last thing to tell the crowd. He would then reveal the latest achievement by the company.

The documentary did a great job of describing the struggles both the company and Jobs went through before they became successful. Being blamed for the failing company, being demoted, and kept in an empty office were some of the challenges faced by Jobs before he resigned, sold his six million shares, and formed a new company (Streeter, 2012). Apple would later struggle almost to become bankrupt, forcing it to beg Jobs to returns since he was the only one who could save it. The film was, however, very accurate in describing the chronological events the company and Jobs faced during his first and second time on the leadership of Apple. It examined the entire life of Jobs from his leadership style and imaginations that have shaped our lives and the influences that molded him.

Management Courses in the Movie

Innovation

Innovation refers to the process of turning an invention or idea into a good or service, creating values that will be paid for by the consumers. For an idea to be considered as innovative, it must represent an economical cost while satisfying a specific need. As seen in the documentary, innovation was the driving force behind Steve Jobs from the beginning until his death. In the beginning, Jobs would collaborate with his childhood friends and invented the first Apple "computer." After twelve years of absence from the company, Jobs returned to the company and launched one innovation after the other. This would be the main reason Apple would become successful. Jobs was not very passionate about computers but were passionate about creating a device that would help individual unleash their potential (Blumenthal, 2012). He believed that creativity involved connecting things. He did not always know where the dot would connect, but they eventually connected. Innovation revolutionized computers, entertainment, and mobile telecommunication. Steve Jobs was one of the best transformative leaders.

The entire documentary helped the audience in understanding how innovation can be one of the building blocks for a company like Apple. When Jobs returned to the failing company, he dramatically reduced the number of products at Apple and ensured each remaining product had an A-team. When he introduced the iPhone in 2007, he argued that when other smarts phones were adding buttons and features, Apple was eliminating such futures to make the device simpler (Blumenthal, 2012). These innovations would later make the iPhone one of the most valued brands in the world. Jobs innovated around the customer experience through benchmarking against some of the best models in consumer services. He teaches us the importance of selling the dream and not the product. In his innovation, Job did not target to sell the product but enrich their lives and help people unleash their potentials. This leadership lesson should be implemented in all the businesses seeking for long-term success.

Collaboration

Collaboration is one of the essential elements of a successful company. It refers to the practice of working together towards specific similar goals. This is a lesson that has been learned from this documentary. Steve understood that it would be difficult to become successful in the long-term and decided to collaborate with his childhood friend Bill Fernandez and Steve Wozniak and formed a computer club that would be crucial in forming The Apple Company. Collaboration enables people to work together and archive common goals or business purposes. People also cooperate for the mutual and general benefit, and this was experienced at apple under the leadership of Jobs (Schwantes, 2018). Even without one of its core founders, Apple has continued to flourish due to the collaborative foundation and legacy that Jobs left.

Since the return of Steve Jobs, Apple has flourished and dominated the personal computer, smartphone as well as the entertainment market. This was achieved by the ability of the company to work as a team to achieved innovation, great quality products, and customer satisfaction. After returning to the company, Jobs surrounded himself with people who he believed could challenge him and enable pushing his ideas to the next level. This was because he understood he could not make it alone, thus teaching the audience on the importance of collaboration (Schwantes, 2018). It was through the interaction with others that Jobs was capable of working out his ideas. There is always a leader in a collaborative team, and the best ideas can only be conceived when the team is built under the vision of the leader. In this case, Jobs was the leader and believed in collaborations for the team to succeed.

Sustainability

Sustainability was the other concept of management presented in this documentary. It means that the process state can be maintained at a specific level for as long as it is wanted. The primary aim of sustainability in this documentary was to maintain innovation and the company's positive growth. Steve Jobs was a strong believer in sustainability (Blumenthal, 2012). His primary focus was not selling the products manufactured at Apple but enhancing the lives of people and enables them to unleash their potentials. By doing this, Apple was assured of long-term success and a strong brand image resulting in higher quality products. Jobs had the dream of propelling the company to greater heights, not by just selling its products but improving people's life.

Trust

Trust was the other content of the management course in this documentary. It was presented by Jobs from the beginning when he trusted his friend Steve Wozniak and formed Apple. Open communication is one of the essential elements in building and enhancing trust in a company. As Jobs grew and became a leader at Apple, he demonstrated his faith to other people explicitly, his employees this resulted in a period of extraordinary development for Apple after he returned. The trust in his employees was grounded in the theory of leadership and practice. In this case, trust became an essential building block of fostering great teamwork and innovation (Schwantes, 2018). In trusting others first, leaders eventually trust and acceptability of others to use their talents, skills, and minds to innovate and create products leading to a successful company such as Apple.

References

Blumenthal, K. (2012). Steve Jobs: The man who thought different. Macmillan.

Schwantes, M. (2018). 24 Years Ago, Steve Jobs Taught a Major Lesson in Good Leadership With This Short Sentence. Inc.com https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/steve-jobs-once-boldly-stated-that-technology-is-nothing-heres-what-he-considered-more-important.html.

Streeter, T. (2012). Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview Steve Jobs—One Last Thing.