Can Profound Strengths Overcome Flaws?leadership.zengerfolkman.com/acton/attachment/10129/f-04d3/1... · Case of Steve Jobs Can Profound Strengths Overcome Flaws? ... Stories from

© 2015 Zenger Folkman

The Fascinating Case of Steve Jobs

Can Profound Strengths Overcome Flaws?

Featuring: Dr. Jack Zenger and Dr. Joe Folkman


The Fascinating Case of Steve Jobs

The Interplay Between Leadership Strengths and Weakness


Poll #1

Is it possible to be a great leader if you possess a Fatal Flaw?

A. YesB. NoC. Maybe?


The Impact of Strengths

• In 2002, we did a study with approximately 2,000 leaders that fundamentally changed the way we approached the development of leaders

• We recently replicated the study with 24,657 leaders and the results were essentially the same

Three Strengths Raises Leadership Effectiveness to the 80th Percentile


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2002 Study Today


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Impact of Having One or More “Fatal Flaw”


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One or More Fatal Flaw

Can a Leader Have Both Profound Strengths and Fatal Flaws?35 leaders out of 27,022 had five or more profound strengths and one or

more Fatal Flaws. They represent .1% of the population.


The Fatal Flaws Still Have Some Negative Impact


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5 Strengths with No Fatal Flaws 5 Strengths with Fatal Flaws

Apple: One of the World’s Most Profitable and Successful Companies

• In 1996, Apple Inc. was struggling

• Today, Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world in terms of market capitalization

• The second largest smartphone vendor in the world

• Apple dominates the US digital music market

• iTunes and iPods have changed the way we buy and listen to music


Steve Jobs—An iPad for Christmas


Steve Jobs


Stories from “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson

Strength—Vision

• “As Regis Mckenna later said, ‘Woz designed a great machine, but it would be sitting in hobby shops were it not for Steve Jobs.’”

• “Bruce Horn was one of the programmers at Xerox PARC. . . ‘You have to come into Apple tomorrow morning,’ Jobs said. ‘I have a lot of stuff to show you.’ Horn did, and Jobs hooked him. ‘Steve was so passionate about building this amazing device that would change the world.’”


Strength—Vision


“By sheer force of his personality, he changed my

mind.”

“By sheer force of his personality, he changed my mind.”


Strength—Inspiring Others

• Problem: Jobs complained it was taking too long to boot up

• If you could save a person’s life, would you find a way to shave ten seconds off the boot time?

Strength—Inspiring Others

• Jobs: 5 million people • Ten seconds extra to boot daily• Fix and three hundred million

hours/year saved

• Equivalent of at least one hundred lifetimes saved per year

• “Larry was suitably impressed, and a few weeks later he came back and it booted up twenty-eight seconds faster”



Strength—Building Pride and Engagement

• “When the design was finally locked in, Jobs called the Macintosh team together for a ceremony.”

• “Real artists sign their work.” – The signatures were engraved

inside each Macintosh– No one would ever see them, but

the team knew their signatures were inside

Strength—Setting Stretch Goals

• Problem: Engineers concluded they could not make a deadline• The software manager calmly explained the situation to Jobs

– They needed an extra two weeks• There was a pause. Jobs did not get angry; instead he spoke in

cold, sober tones

• He told them they were really great. So great, in fact, that he knew they could get this done

• “There’s no way we’re slipping…I’m going to ship the code a week from Monday, with your names on it.”


Strength—Passion for Product Perfection

• Paid attention to all details— NOTHING was too small– Design and aesthetics– Features and function– Assembly– Color


Question 1: Weakness or Fatal Flaw?

• “There was also this issue of his hygiene.” • “At meetings we had to look at his dirty feet.” • Sometimes to relieve stress, he would soak his feet in the

toilet— a practice that was not a soothing one for his colleagues.

• Was his hygiene a Weakness or Fatal Flaw?



• “Jobs decreed the size and shape of the external case, and he refused to let anyone alter it.”

• “The result was piggybacked boards with poor connectors that frequently failed.”

• Was his arrogance a weakness or Fatal Flaw?



• “He is a dreadful manager…I have always liked Steve, but I have found it impossible to work for him… Jobs regularly misses appointments. This is so well-known as to be almost a running joke…He does not give credit where due.”

– Memo from Jeff Rasking to Mike Scott

• Was his rude and boorish behavior a weakness or Fatal Flaw?



• “‘Just because he tells you something is awful or great, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll feel that way tomorrow,’ Tribble explained. ‘If he actually likes it, exactly one week later, he’ll come back to you and propose your idea to you as if he’d thought of it.’”

• Was taking credit for others ideas a weakness or a Fatal Flaw?


Lessons: What is the Point?


In spite of the weaknesses and shortcomings, Steve Jobs’ Profound Strengths drove the success of Apple.

In Our Research We Found and Continue to Find…• It is the presence of strengths, not the absence of weakness

that differentiated good from great leaders

• It did not seem to matter which competency was a strength—leaders are different, and having a strength in a key competency was the secret to their making a greater contribution

• In a few cases, great leaders had weaknesses that did not hurt them

• If a leader had five Profound Strengths, extremely low scoring behaviors that for most leaders would have been Fatal Flaws, did not derail or capsize that leader



Idiosyncratic Credit Theory

If you have a few Profound Strengths, people will forgive your weakness

Question

Would Apple have been even more successful if Steve Jobs had corrected some of his apparent flaws?


?


Can You Build a Strength?• Using a linear process to build

Profound Strengths doesn’t work

• Strengths-based Development – Non-linear process– Build strengths through “non-

linear” development process or “cross-training”

– Powerful combinations

Competency Companions


Technical/Professional

Expertise

Technical Expertise


Can You Build a Strength?

• Competency Companions– High statistical correlation

between these companion behaviors and the differentiating competency

– Empirically derived through research

Competency Companions


Technical/Professional

Expertise

Solves Problems

and Analyzes

Issues RelationshipBuilding

and Networking

CommunicatePowerfully

Technical Expertise

• Solving Problems

• Building Relationships

• Communication

• +5 Additional

These are the keys to helping people build Profound Strengths

Zenger Folkman is the authority in Strengths-based Leadership Development. We are the only organization who has a researched, codified process.

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Can Profound Strengths Overcome Flaws?leadership.zengerfolkman.com/acton/attachment/10129/f-04d3/1... · Case of Steve Jobs Can Profound Strengths Overcome Flaws? ... Stories from