There’s the typical job. Punch in, push paper, punch out, repeat. Then there’s a career at Apple. Where you’re encouraged to defy routine. To explore the far reaches of the possible. To travel uncharted paths. And to be a part of something far bigger than yourself. Because around here, changing the world just comes with the job description.
—The Apple Career Website “Think Different” is more than a slogan to push Apple products. It’s at the company’s core, so to speak—the expression of a drive that has attracted 80,000 of the world’s brightest and most driven minds, disrupted then dominated industry after industry, and made Apple stock the most valuable on the planet. Apple began in 1976 as a computer company (it was once “Apple Computer”), but has since blazed paths in music (iPod and iTunes), smartphones, and tablet devices (the iPhone and iPad), and has entered the “wearable” technology market with the Apple Watch. How does Apple continue to innovate? Its hyper-focus on intentionally unorthodox product and team management strategies is one of the factors that gives Apple the edge.

Product Obsessed Apple’s unprecedented success in the world of technology has long made it the subject of breathless analysis in the press and academia. Though extraordinary leadership is often the focus (most notable was its iconic cofounder, chairman, and CEO, the late Steve Jobs), there’s something more. The internal culture and management principals developed at Apple are different. For starters, Apple is not just focused on product; it’s obsessed. Everything, “from strategy to budgets to organizational design and talent management functions,”
revolves around the product, according to management guru Dr. John Sullivan, who has studied and written about the company for years. Forcing employees to be “all about product” usurps selfish tendencies and “increases coordination, cooperation, and integration between the different functions and teams,” says Sullivan.
“A product focus increases the feeling of ‘we’re all in this together’ for a single clear purpose: the product.”
Apple has not necessarily been the first to invent the things that has made it famous. Expensive computers so large that they filled warehouses already existed when Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak invented the personal computer, but Apple is credited with enabling everyone to have a computer in her or his home office and for making it easy to use. The company has a knack for turning previously existing inventions into products that change the world by bundling and improving innovations plucked from the competitive landscape. From Siri (adapted from the military’s CALO, the Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes) to the super-turnedpersonal computer, Apple doesn’t take on a product unless management thinks it can do it better.

Questions 1. How does Apple utilize innovation for product development?
2. Describe how Apple’s corporate ladder inspires continual innovation from employees and how its approach differs from traditional methods of evoking creativity from employees.
3. How does Apple’s approach of simplicity and accessibility lead to product innovation?