How Are You Defying "Best Practice"?

Here's what I heard you say on the difficult realities you've experienced and how you've overcome them:

In reality, "best practice"...

1 ...isn't always the "best." Best practices work for a particular company in a particular market at a particular time and what is best for one organization, or one situation, may not be best for others.

2 ...often isn't feasible in terms of time, money, effort, and incentives. We can rarely afford the best because the end customer doesn't want to pay for the best product — they want to pay for a fairly good product. In addition, best practices are usually premised on getting consistently good results in the long-term but people are rewarded based on the results they got last quarter.

3 ...is sometimes unachievable given that common sense isn't all that common. People learn something in their early 20s and then apply what they have learned for the rest of their careers. And all too often they hammer it into what they know or what they can sell... and after that much pounding, the result has lost all of its key elements.

So instead, focus on...

Adapting best practices intelligently and innovatively to a given organization's cultures and situations.

Defining quality processes so that you have the best likelihood to deliver quality products and services at the time and cost required.

Having experienced people who understand the fundamentals and know how to think critically, strategically, and creatively.

These realities pose significant challenges, and lead naturally to my next question:

What best practices do leaders sometimes have to forgo to react to a particular situation? For example:

• A recent article on The Blanchard Companies website exhorted leaders to coach their people and overcome the above realities by encouraging "managers to see coaching as a part of their job instead of a threat" and "senior leaders to be more coach-like" and provide "incentives for managers to develop their people." But none of this advice will make a whit of difference if the coachee doesn't want to be coached or the necessary chemistry doesn't exist between the coach and coachee. Although I am a coach by nature and profession, a handful of my direct reports in my prior life were uncoachable, at least by me, at that particular point in time, and it made sense to wait until they wanted coaching or find a coach that "clicked" with the employee.
• Advice on how to influence others emphasizes the importance of building strong relationships, ensuring productive dialogue, and discovering interests to create opportunities for mutual gain. Nowhere in management research will you find the importance of, in the words of one of my clients, "going on strike." "Going on strike" is a last ditch effort to restart a relationship by, paradoxically, stopping it. It's necessary when the other party's wins are always at your expense. By going on strike, you withhold valuable resources and prove that your colleague doesn't have the political muscle to push you around and make you comply with their unreasonable requests and behavior. Needless to say, this is a risky approach and one that is effective only if used sparingly and with the support (or at least awareness) of the powers-that-be.

Okay, now it's your turn. Take a moment to share how you are turning "best practice" on its head. What have you done that seemed to defy "best practice conventional wisdom" but turned out to be effective?

The Top 50 Human Resources Blogs To Watch In 2009

1) Four Hour Work Week  URL: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog Princeton guest lecturer and troublemaker Tim Ferriss blogs about his cutting-edge experiments in lifestyle design: outsourcing life, global travel and mobile lifestyles, anddoubling income while halving hours. 2) Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist  URL: http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/ This blog is about career advice. And about Penelope Trunk. Her career never had a straight path, but she is always learning and trying new things, and that's what makes it fun. And sometimes scary. 3) Chief Happiness Officer  URL: http://positivesharing.com/ Happiness at work is a strange idea to many people, who have gotten used to the idea that work is unpleasant, tough and hard. Find out what you can do to make your business the place that inspires workers to do a great job and have fun at the same time with this inspiring blog. 4) Punk Rock Human Resources URL: http://punkrockhr.com/ Laurie Ruettimann is a punk rock, Human Resources professional with extensive Fortune 500 experience. She writes and speaks about business trends, employment, Corporate America, and opting-out of the rat race. 5) JibberJobber Blog URL: http://www.jibberjobber.com/blog The JibberJobber Blog offers updates on job search, career tools, personal branding, career management, networking, social networking, and thoughts on other resources. 6) Fortify Your Oasis  URL: http://fortifyservices.blogspot.com/ Consultant and author Rowan Manahan muses on the world of work, career management and personal development. 7) The Career Encouragement Blog URL: http://careerencouragement.typepad.com/ The Career Encouragement Blog is all about encouraging you to have a rewarding and personally satisfying career. The blog focuses on career development, work and family, working moms, job search strategies, career planning, and decision making. 8) Work Happy Now! URL: http://www.workhappynow.com/ Maximizing your work happiness should be the theme of your working life. Happiness creates success. When you stop putting in the hours and start extracting joy from work, you'll be successful. This blog helps you achieve that goal. 9) Career Hub URL: http://www.careerhubblog.com/main Career Hub helps people take charge of their job search, build confidence and advance their careers by connecting job seekers with the best minds in career counseling, resume writing, personal branding and recruiting.

Worklife 

10) Bob Sutton  URL: http://bobsutton.typepad.com/ This blog is about the workplace. Bob Sutton is a Stanford Professor and Organizational Psychologist who writes about innovation, leadership, evidence-based management, and workplace assholes and how to reform - and if need be - get rid of them. 11) All Things Workplace URL: http://www.allthingsworkplace.com/ Real-life stories, tips, and techniques for creating top notch workplaces, performance, and work life for executives, leaders, employees, and their coaches/consultants from Steve Roesler. 12) Gruntled Employees URL: http://www.gruntledemployees.com/ Managers, executives, in-house counsel, and HR people know all about disgruntled employees and their costs. Gruntled Employees looks at how to keep employees gruntled. Employer advocate and counsel Jay Shepherd leads the discussion. 13) 8 Hours & A Lunch URL: http://debowen.typepad.com/8hours/ 8 Hours & A Lunch is a search for balance and sanity, manging change, layoffs, training, and the recession.

Recruitment, Talent Management & Compensation 

14) Cheezhead URL: http://www.cheezhead.com/ Cheezhead is dedicated to issues pertaining to search engine optimization, Internet recruiting, human resources, employment branding, technology and marketing. 15) The HR Capitalist URL: http://www.hrcapitalist.com/ The HR Capitalist examines the intersection of the HR practice, technology and business results in today’s organizations, with a strong focus on areas like recruiting and performance management, but also with an eye towards the thousand other areas that impact HR Generalists at every level. 16) Your HR Guy URL: http://www.yourhrguy.com/ Lance Haun is a Human Resources Generalist practicing in the field for the past five years. His professional interests include recruitment, team building, training and development, employee relations and restraining himself from beating the crap out of bad managers and employees. 17) The Recruiters Lounge URL: http://www.therecruiterslounge.com/ In March 2008, the HR blog “JimStroud.com” (aka JimStroud 2.0) rebranded itself as The Recruiters Lounge. At this writing, it is written by Jim Stroud (and friends) and explores the wacky world of employment with articles, podcasts, videos, comics and more. 18) The Talent Buzz URL: http://thetalentbuzz.com/ The Talent Buzz is a Staffing, Employment, and Recruiting Blog. It is a leader in providing news, trends, and information for the Human Resources and Recruiting Community. 19) HR to HR 2.0 and HCM URL: http://strategic-hcm.blogspot.com/ This blog focuses on helping businesses that already have sound approaches to people management gain further improvements in the capabilities and engagement of their people, and the effectiveness of their organisations. 20) Workplace Learning Today URL: http://www.brandon-hall.com/workplacelearningtoday This is a daily blog from Brandon Hall Research, which gives a summary of news, events, commentary, and research on workplace learning, including training, performance support, job aids, learning technologies, talent management, organizational learning, and adult education. 21) Compensation Force  URL: http://compforce.typepad.com/compensation_force Compensation Force offers practical news, information, tips and musings about employee performance and compensation. 22) Workers Comp Insider URL: http://www.workerscompinsider.com/ Lynch Ryan's weblog about workers' compensation, risk management, business insurance, workplace health & safety, occupational medicine, injured workers, insurance webtools & technology and related topics.

HR 101 

23) About.com Human Resources URL: http://humanresources.about.com/ This Human Resources site provides articles, free sample policies, and other resources for people who: work in HR; manage or lead people; want to increase their personal or career effectiveness; or want to improve their ability to work with people. 24) Evil HR Lady URL: http://evilhrlady.blogspot.com/ Why is she evil? Well, she's not, but that's the perception of most people in HR. Need to fire someone? Come to HR. Need to explain to someone why, even after working their rear end off all year, that their annual increase is 2.7%? Come to HR. 25) KnowHR Blog URL: http://www.knowhr.com/blog KnowHR Blog serves up straight talk about human resources. They like simplicity in language. They don’t have much patience with HR jargon (unless they ’re making fun of it). 26) HRM Business Practices & Ideas URL: http://www.hrmbusiness.com/ This blog provides practices and notes on Human Resources, Small Business, Finance, and Personal Management. 27) HR Daily Advisor URL: http://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/ HR Daily Advisor presents just ONE HR tip, piece of HR news, or compliance advisory a day, readable in 5 minutes or less. Check it out every morning and see how easy it is to keep up with changing HR management trends. 28) HR Bartender URL: http://www.hrbartender.com/ HR Bartender is here to provide human resources expertise. They want to be that friendly face that greets you after a long day at work. They ’ll listen to issues and offer up some options to make your work life as smooth as a vodka martini. Cheers! 29) HR Marketer URL: http://hrmarketer.blogspot.com/ HR Marketer is a blog for companies who sell products or services to human resource executives.

Leadership 

30) Great Leadership URL: http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/ This blog offers opinions and information on leadership and leadership development from a practitioner in the field of leadership development for over 20 years, with a focus on questions about leadership development, leadership issues, crazy bosses, or impossible employees. 31) The Engaging Brand URL: http://theengagingbrand.typepad.com/ This blog offers thoughts on the world of business, leadership, creativity, branding, all aimed at enabling people to be the best that they can be. 32) Slow Leadership URL: http://www.slowleadership.org/blog Slow Leadership offers ways of returning civilization and humanity to organizations. Their aim is to provide interesting and challenging articles to help you think through the issues and find ways to enjoy your life and work to the full. This is a blog about ideas, not quick tips. 33) Three Star Leadership URL: http://blog.threestarleadership.com/ If you are a boss at any level, this blog will give you insight, information, and pointers to resources to do a better job and live a better life. 34) Execupundit URL: http://www.execupundit.com/ Execupundit.com features management consultant Michael Wade’s commentary on leadership, management, ethics and life in an often unconventional and humorous manner that interests people who’d otherwise avoid a workplace-related site. 35) HR Thoughts URL: http://hrmanager.squarespace.com/ If you are a Human Resource professional, developing leader or someone interested in transforming the way we communicate, interact and connect with others, you've come to the right place. HR Thoughts is partly professional, partly personal and 100% authentic. Guaranteed. 36) Six Degrees From Dave URL: http://sixdegreesfromdave.com/ Six Degrees from Dave spotlights HR industry leaders, sourcing gurus, global staffing practices and social networking.

On Organizations 

37) Orgtheory  URL: http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/ Orgtheory.net looks at the essence of the organization, from theory, strategy, management, sociology, design, economics, academia, stakeholders, public policy, human resources, and ethics. In short, all things organizational. 38) White Spaces  URL: http://gauteg.blogspot.com/ White Spaces is Gautam's commentary on business and management with an Indian flavour, focusing on organizations, work, people, strategy, learning, knowledge, innovation and high performance. 39) Flip Chart Fairy Tales URL: http://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/ Flip Chart Fairy Tales offers reflections on business, the world of work and the general organisational crap that we all have to put up with in the course of our employment. 40) Authentic Organizations URL: http://authenticorganizations.com/ Striving for authenticity is a powerful way that organizations - and the people in them - can renew, reform or revolutionize what they are about and what they accomplish together. This blog looks at what we can do, as organization members, as managers, leaders, scholars or practitioners, as persons, to help organizations pursue authenticity.

HR Law 

41) Workplace Prof Blog  URL: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog Two Labor and Employment Law Professors cover arbitration, employment discrimination, employee benefits, labor law, and employment law in all of its dimensions. 42) George's Employment Blawg URL: http://www.employmentblawg.com/ George created George’s Employment Blawg in May 2003 as an outgrowth of his online reading in the field of employment law. As the blawg grew, he also started reading and posting more about topics of general interest in the employment and HR area.

A Day in the Life 

43) Ask a Manager URL: http://askamanager.blogspot.com/ If you're not sure what your manager is thinking, or how to ask for a raise, or whether you might be in danger of getting fired, or how to act in a second interview, ask this manager and find out. 44) HR Wench URL: http://hrwench.blogspot.com/ HR Wench is one HR Manager's musings about life, work and kicking butts. 45) HR Minion URL: http://hrminion.blogspot.com/ The blogger behind HR Minion would like to tell you, "I may be a minion, but I'm not your mother so take some ownership over your own career and stop bugging me. However, if you have any questions on how to do that, then this is the place for you." 46) Cranky Middle Manager URL: http://cmm.thepodcastnetwork.com/ Being a manager today is enough to make anyone cranky, but you're not alone. Join Wayne Turmel and thousands of listeners around the world as they speak to the brightest minds in the business, management and career development.

HR Technology 

47) Michael Specht  URL: http://specht.com.au/michael/ Michael Specht blogs from Australia looking at technology, enterprise 2.0, management, Human Resources and recruitment. 48) The Human Capitalist URL: http://humancapitalist.com/ The Human Capitalist is a blog by research director and industry analyst Jason Corsello about HR technology, services, and outsourcing trends. 49) Vendorprisey URL: http://theotherthomasotter.wordpress.com/ Vendorprisey is all about HR and ERP technology, Enterprise 2.0, SAP, living in Germany and even expensive bicycle components 50) Systematic HR  URL: http://systematichr.com/ SystematicHR is a human resources blog about the intersection between HR process and HR technology. It is where HR strategies become the practice of service delivery, discussing how HRMS systems, point solutions such as TAS, can be utilized to maximize your employee experience and enhance the strategic capabilities of your organization.

How to Build a High-Traffic Blog Without Killing Yourself

Written by Tim Ferriss

The above video is one of my favorite presentations I’ve given in 2009, an opening keynote at the last  San Francisco WordCamp, titled “How to Blog without Killing Yourself”. More than 700 people from 32 countries were in attendance, which made for a wonderful experience.

The original title was “Scalable Blogging Behaviors: How to Grow from 1 to 1,000,000 Readers” and the content did not change.

In the above presentation, including detailed screenshots, I cover…

- Why I blog
- How I blog and select best practices
- Frequency and tools — best times and days to post
- Blogging myths and how to harness data for better results
- Testing design and surprising findings that can be copied
- How I address comments and community building
- How I write and research for good social media response
- 20 minutes of audience Q&A on Twitter, branding, outsourcing, and much more

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed giving it.

Three Rules for These Times

Three Rules for These Times

10:42 PM Monday May 18, 2009
by Alan M. Webber

Most economists agree that the worst of this financial meltdown is now behind us. Unemployment is at a 25-year high, it's true, but at least the pace of lay-offs has slowed. If there was a doubt before, it seems safe to conclude that we're going to make it through this mess. There will be enormous social costs. People have lost their livelihoods and their life savings. Seniors have seen their retirement nest eggs disappear; young people have seen their employment hopes vanish. But we're going to make it.

The question is, what, if anything will we learn from this disaster? Already economists are subjecting their field to a long overdo critical review. In their thoughtful book, "Animal Spirits," George Akerlof and Robert Shiller, suggest that economics has left out the human factor--the emotional components that drive economic behavior. Alan Greenspan has publicly acknowledged that his mental model of the economy clearly did not match reality. It seems clear that we'll soon see new regulations put in place, new oversight and legislation designed to change the way the public sector referees the behavior of the private sector in economic matters.

But what if the problem isn't economics? What if the problem is a business problem--a failure of management and an absence of leadership? Shouldn't business and business schools be looking at their practices and precepts with the same critical eye as the economics profession? I recently wrote a book called Rules of Thumb, a collection of 52 life lessons. I think three of them can help propel the thinking on these issues in the right direction.

Years ago, when America's competitiveness appeared to be failing, two legendary HBS professors, Bill Abernathy and Bob Hayes, challenged business schools and business leaders to take a hard look at themselves. "Managing Our Way to Economic Decline" became a must-read text. Isn't it time for another such review?

What is the business of business school? And what is the purpose of business?

At least once per decade for the last 30 years we've seen American business go seriously off the rails. The reengineering fad, Mike Milken and junk bonds, the savings and loan crisis, the dotcom boom and bust, the Long Term Capital Management panic--only a partial, abbreviated history of business disasters--suggest that something systemic is wrong with the way business goes about business. An individual with this track record of crises would be a candidate for an intervention, a time out in a recovery center, and life-long participation in the 12-step program of their choice. Something is wrong--and it's time to face it.

Business schools teach finance and strategy, marketing and HR, IT and operations management. Those are the courses of a trade school, not the developmental curriculum of a profession.

The first question business schools should teach their students to ask is my Rule #3: Ask the last question first. The last question is, what's the point of the exercise? Jack Welch famously said it was to maximize shareholder value--a terrible answer in retrospect. Peter Drucker famously said it was to make and keep a customer. What is the answer that fits our situation in 2009, and beyond? Today, business schools need to teach students to ask the last question first--or risk taking their company down the old dead-end path.

The next piece of the curriculum has to be Rule #23: Keep two lists, one that holds what gets you up in the morning and one for what keeps you up at night. Managers and leaders have got to know themselves before they know their businesses. They've got to have passion for their work and concern for their world. Otherwise they're just punching the time clock and risking everyone's future.

Finally I'd teach Rule #4: Don't implement solutions. Prevent problems. Everything that will be put in place as a clean up to the mess we're in now won't be enough if we keep creating new disasters. We need a new generation of business leaders who anticipate problems and prevent them from happening. It's smarter, cheaper, and more effective than the every-ten-year clean up we've become accustomed to.

Every one of these three rules has two things in common. First, they cut across all the disciplines of traditional business school. They are ways of seeing the world, ways of making sense of everyday business realities. They teach a way of thinking and a way of synthesizing the world of work that every crisis--and every opportunity--shows us we need. And second, they are about people, not about business. They are about the human side of enterprise. They carry the message that work is personal. That each individual has a contribution to make and a decision to weigh. That we have to decide not only what we will do in business, but even more important, how and why we will do business the way we do it in the first place.

It's time for new course-ware in the business of doing business.

Alan M. Webber is an award-winning, nationally-recognized editor, author, and columnist.

Words You Should Never Use at the Office Unless You Have To

Words You Should Never Use at the Office Unless You Have To
Marlys Harris


Once upon a time and about two jobs ago, one of my colleagues who was so officious that she carried around three clipboards to make sure that she was getting on everybody’s nerves, constantly used the expression “going forward.” She usually said it after you made a minor mistake that she deemed outrageous, like filling out a purchase order incorrectly or routing a file to the wrong person. At the end of a long chastising lecture, she would announce, “Going forward, you should blah blah, blah.” For some reason, it grated. “Why can’t she say ‘in future?’” I used to grumble.

Such office jargon is pretty annoying, and it’s an assault on the ears even to hear it. Some frustrated employees have taken to playing “Buzzword Bingo,” during meetings, using cards with expressions like “outside the box” or “on the same page.” Fortunately, such jargon goes out of style pretty quickly. I haven’t heard “going forward” in years. On the flip side, old expressions are almost immediately replaced by new, even more irritating ones.

Fortunately for all cubicle rats, staffing firm Accountemps periodically surveys executives to find out what they deem the most annoying and overused office clichés. Here are this year’s latest results and my own cynical translations and usages:

• Leverage. Deployment of an insufficient amount of something to do that which was previously done with much more. Example: “After the layoffs, we can leverage our staff of three to cover the entire Eastern seaboard.”

• Reach out. Deliver the bad news. Example: “Reach out to the customers with a letter announcing that their interest rate just doubled.”

• It is what it is. Get used to it. Example: “Your administrative assistant doesn’t know how to answer the phone. It is what it is.”

• Viral. So prevalent that you want to barf when you hear about it. Example: “Twitter has gone viral.”

• Game changer. A catalyst that will transform a frog into a prince or vice-versa. Example: “Getting indicted for fraud was a game changer for Bernie Madoff.”

• Disconnect. A situation in which you wanted jelly, but someone gave you peanut butter. Example: “There is a disconnect between what the consumer wants and what we intend to provide.”

• Value-add. A gain, usually financial. Example:“She refuses to donate to charity unless she sees some value-add, say, eternal salvation.”

• Circle back. See you again and again and again whether or not you want to be seen. Example: “I’m having cocktails with Mervin, but I will circle back around midnight to see if you’ve finished the Implebottom Report” or “The stalker abided by the court’s restraining order but then circled back to hang out by my garbage can.”

• Socialize: Jam the idea down their throats. Example: “We need to socialize to our patients our practice of closing the doctor’s office every day for two hours at lunch.” In other words, “Call 911.”

• Interface: Have relations with. Example: “I interfaced with Charlie, and now I’m pregnant.”

• Cutting edge: So modern, it’s to die for. Example: “Sleeperama’s cutting-edge mattress will take the country by storm.”

I was going to try to leverage all of the above to produce an essay, but I was afraid that in the effort, I would want to take a cutting edge to my throat. Anyway, word to the wise: now that these expressions have been officially identified as irritating jargon, you might want to give them up. Unless your boss is planning to circle back to reach out to interface and socialize to your value-add. What can I tell you? It is what it is.

10 Questions for Robert Kiyosaki

How to Innovate Like Apple

How to Innovate Like Apple
by Chris Morrison

Apple makes it look easy. From the sleek design of its personal computers to the clever intuitiveness of its software to the ubiquity of the iPod to the genius of the iPhone, Apple consistently redefines each market it enters by creating brilliant gadgets that put the competition to shame. What’s the secret? Apple has built its management system so that it’s optimized to create distinctive products. That’s good news for would-be emulators, because it means Apple’s method for innovation can be understood as a specific set of management practices and organizational structures that — in theory, at least — anyone can use. This Crash Course outlines the techniques Apple uses to make the magic happen.

• It may take several years to cultivate new skills and rebuild your product lineup.
• You’ll need funding to create a dedicated innovation team and sufficient capital to rethink your product lineup.
• Strategic clarity: Innovating effectively means creating your own opportunities in a crowded marketplace to avoid both mediocrity and commoditization.
• Patience: Creativity is a fickle thing, and it doesn’t always follow the clock. False starts and the occasional flop are part of the process and must be accommodated.
• Strong leadership: Innovation doesn’t happen by committee. Visionaries with effective management skills are hard to find, but they’re a critical ingredient for success.

Clear Your Mind

GOAL: UNDERSTAND WHAT IT TAKES TO CREATE TRULY REMARKABLE PRODUCTS.

The word “zen” is often applied to both Apple’s products and the company’s highly focused CEO, Steve Jobs. And while the compliment usually refers to the beauty of the company’s minimalist products, enlightenment is more than skin-deep. “In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains or the sofa,” Jobs has said of his product philosophy. “But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design.” Design is a “fundamental soul,” Jobs says, that expresses itself through an end result — the product.

What is Apple’s fundamental soul? The company’s motto, “Think Different,” provides a hint. Apple maintains an introspective, self-contained operating style that is capable of confounding competitors and shaking up entire industries. For example, Nokia, once considered the undisputed leader in mobile phones, never anticipated that a single product from a computer maker might throw its ascendancy into question.

Internally, Apple barely acknowledges competition. It’s the company’s ability to think differently about itself that keeps Apple at the head of the pack. Current and past employees tell stories about products that have undergone costly overhauls just to improve one simple detail. Other products are canceled entirely because they don’t fit in or don’t perform up to par.

Apple’s culture has codified a habit that is good for any company to have but is especially valuable for firms that make physical things: Stop, step back from your product, and take a closer look. Without worrying about how much work you’ve already put into it, is it really as good as it could be? Apple asks that question constantly.

Build Your Fortress

GOAL: CREATE THE INFRASTRUCTURE YOU NEED TO INNOVATE.

From the outside, Apple’s offices look like those of just about any large modern American corporation. Having outgrown its headquarters campus at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, Calif., Apple now has employees in other buildings scattered across the town and around the world. Size and sprawl are formidable challenges that most companies manage gracelessly, either by splintering into disorganized, undisciplined communities or by locking employees into tight, stifling bureaucracies. Apple tends toward the latter, but it does so in a unique way that generally (but not always) plays to its advantage.

At its worst, Apple’s culture resembles the closed paranoia of North Korea. For example, one Apple source who agreed to be interviewed anonymously for this story backed out at the last minute. Why? He feared that his employer would examine his phone bill and find him out. Another spoke on background but mentioned the possibility of a lawsuit if he were quoted by name. These are common fears within Apple, and they really do keep the company’s employees quiet. The obsession with secrecy is a double-edged sword, however: It gives Apple a vital element of surprise in the marketplace, but the never-ending game of internal spy vs. spy is draining for rank-and-file employees. Indeed, the corporate culture came under scrutiny recently after an employee of a foreign supplier — reportedly under suspicion for leaking the prototype of a new iPhone — committed suicide in Shenzhen, China.

Beyond the secrecy, which affects everyone, Apple’s approach is hardly one-size-fits-all. Rank-and-file employees are often given clear-cut directives and close supervision. Proven talent gets a freer hand, regardless of job title.

Checklist

MANAGING DIFFERENT

Over time, Apple has built a seasoned management team that’s optimized to support bold new product initiatives (and recover from the occasional flop). Here are a few of the techniques Apple’s management uses to make the magic happen.

1. Ignore fads. Apple has held off building a cheap miniature laptop to respond to the “netbook” fad, because these devices don’t offer good margins. Instead it released the ultrathin, ultra-expensive Air, a product more in line with its own style.

2. Don’t back down from fights you can win. Apple is a tough partner and a ruthless enemy. In 2007, Apple pulled NBC’s television programs from the iTunes Store after the network tried to double the prices consumers pay to download shows. NBC backed down within days, and ever since, giant media conglomerates have been hesitant to face off with Apple over pricing.

3. Flatten sprawling hierarchies. Companies with extended chains of authority tend to plod when it’s time to act. Most of the decisions at Apple come from Jobs and his immediate deputies.

4. Pay less attention to market research and competitors. Most firms develop their products through a combination of touchy-feely consumer focus groups and efforts to imitate successful products from other companies. Apple does neither, and the iPod and iPhone are clear proof of that.

Cultivate Your Elite

GOAL: EMPOWER YOUR MOST VALUABLE EMPLOYEES TO DO AMAZING WORK.

In truly despotic societies, both art and science suffer terribly. Apple, on the other hand, reliably churns out the industrial equivalents of da Vinci paintings and Hokusai woodcuts. This has little to do with how the company treats employees in general. Rather, it stems from the meticulous care and feeding provided to a specific group: the creatives. Apple’s segmented, stratified organizational structure — which coddles its most valuable, productive employees — is one of the company’s most formidable assets.

One former Apple consultant tells of an eye-opening introduction to Apple’s first-class treatment of its creatives. The consultant visited Apple’s Industrial Design Group, the team that gives Apple products their distinctive, glossy look. Tucked away within Apple’s main campus, the IDG is a world unto itself. It’s also sealed behind unmarked, restricted-access doors. Within the IDG, employees operate free from outside distractions and interference. “It didn’t feel like working at Apple,” our source remembers. “It felt like working at a small design firm.” Some companies are famous for perks — Google, for example, with its free massages and gourmet lunches. Apple focuses on atmosphere, nurturing its best designers behind opaque glass in a hidden sanctuary with music playing in the background.

Despite their favored status, Apple’s creatives still have no more insight into the company’s overall operations than an Army private has into the Pentagon. At Apple, new products are often seen in their complete form by only a small group of top executives. This, too, works as a strength for Apple: Instead of a sprawling bureaucracy that new products have to be pushed through, Apple’s top echelon is a small, tightly knit group that has a hand in almost every important decision the company makes.

Case Study

NURTURING INNOVATION AT CISCO

Other firms have also found success by separating innovation from business as usual. Here’s what David Hsieh, vice president of marketing at Cisco, has to say about his company’s Emerging Technologies Group:

“Big companies have a tendency to eat their own children. They get afraid of disrupting their own revenue stream with a new unit, or someone has a great idea and an executive sponsors it, but the moment the sponsor comes under pressure, they ditch all the little initiatives to focus on their core business. The advantage of a new unit is to insulate it from people who say, ‘We can’t do it that way because we’ve done it a different way for years.’ You want to enable a group of people to think more broadly and creatively without outside pressures. Cisco’s Emerging Technologies Group has been in operation for three years, and it’s created a number of businesses. The early ones are all growing successfully, even in a bad economy.”

Don’t Rush, Don’t Dawdle

GOAL: PREVENT SHORT-TERM, CYCLICAL, OR COMPETITIVE PRESSURES FROM OVERWHELMING AN EFFECTIVE STRATEGY.

It’s often said that people in particular cultures live life at their own unique paces. Americans are seen as hard-driving and somewhat shortsighted — a side effect of a business culture that takes its cues from the stock market’s emphasis on quarterly results.

Apple is different because Apple dances to a rhythm of its own making. Although its rising stock has become a vital part of many portfolios, Apple cancels, releases, and updates products at its own speed, seemingly irrespective of market conditions or competitive pressure. Apple doesn’t telegraph its moves, either: The iPod and iPhone, iconic products both, each began as rumors that Apple seemed determined to quash.

Plan B

STAYING COOL WHEN THE HEAT IS ON

Your stock price is down, your customers are angry, and investors are banging on your door. Sure, acting like Apple seems like a good idea — until your board starts craving blood. How do you maintain a focus on innovation when you don’t have a few successful quarters to back you up?

For a vivid demonstration of how to publicly recover from your errors (in style, no less), check out the video of Steve Jobs’ 1997 Macworld addressand an associated BNET feature, How to Present Like Steve Jobs.

Clone Your Own Steve Jobs

GOAL: IF YOU PUT A TYRANNICAL PERFECTIONIST IN CHARGE, INSTITUTIONALIZE HIS THINKING.

New adherents to the cult of Steve Jobs may be surprised to hear this: The most iconic Apple laptop, the original PowerBook, was released in 1991, after Jobs had been absent for six years. The smug hipsters who line today’s cafes with rows of identical MacBooks are merely updated versions of their counterparts from the early ’90s. Yet Jobs was in no way responsible for this enduring innovation.

So does that mean Steve Jobs is irrelevant? Or is Jobs — and his maniacal focus on building insanely great products — a necessary ingredient of Apple’s success?

Historians have long grappled with a similar question: How critical are those rare, world-changing “great leaders” whose efforts seem irreplaceable? Most historians now believe that great leaders are made by their circumstances and that their great deeds actually reflect the participation of thousands, or even millions, of people. In the case of Apple, there would be no Mac, no iPod, and no iPhone without the efforts of thousands of engineers and vast numbers of consumers who were looking for products that better served their needs.

That said, Jobs cuts an impressive figure, and if he was “made” by his circumstances, that process took many years. Remember that the first edition of Steve Jobs — the young inventor who, at 21, created Apple Computer — was not the visionary we know today. Instead, after nine years at Apple’s helm, the young Steve Jobs was ousted because of his aggressive, take-no-prisoners personality, which created a poisonous, unproductive atmosphere when it pervaded the company.

Today’s Steve Jobs seems to have learned how to focus that aggressive, take-no-prisoners personality more shrewdly, and to great effect. While he’s still an essential part of Apple’s success, the company has also institutionalized many of Jobs’ values to such an extent that Apple is now far less dependent on him. Tim Cook, for example, worked well as acting CEO during the first half of this year, when Jobs was on sick leave. But questions remain. So long as the overwhelming personality of Jobs is present, can anyone really grow into that position? Only when Jobs steps back from his role permanently will we really be able to determine how well Apple has learned the lessons he has taught.