Kenny Chapman breaks down five leadership lessons from Steve Jobs' career: love your work, listen to what customers actually need, own a specific niche, redefine the game instead of competing on someone else's terms, and build a team you trust.
Hey, everybody, Kenny Chapman here, the blue collar coach, coming to you live with this week's video version of Freedom Friday Focus now. Lovely. Christy and I flew down to Tampa where we're doing our three day school this week. And on our flight down, I watched a movie called Jobs the movie about Steve Jobs where Ashton Kutcher plays Steve Jobs. Phenomenal movie from a perspective of studying peak performance and excellence. And so here I'm shooting this video for you this morning on a product that Steve Jobs created. And when I study that company and the things that happen to Apple, whether you're an Apple fan or not, you've got to appreciate success. When he got fired from the company that he founded and then years later they brought him back and put him back in CEO and he bought the company back. It was three months from closing, three months from closing. Ten years later, he released the first iPhone. How does that happen? That happens through Focus. I want to share five quick things with you today. The first thing that Steve Jobs said about his business was that you've got to love what you do. He lived it, he breathed it. Even when they cut him from Apple. And he started the company called NeXT, which he did, help develop the platform and the technology that would turn into the ipod and eventually the iPhone. By doing that other company, he bled Apple, man. That was what it was about. What about you? Do you love what you do so much that you bleed it? I talk about John Bleeds Peterson red sometimes because he just loves the company so much and what he does. What about you as an owner, as a manager, or possibly even as a technician? Are you loving what you do? Number two, he said you got to listen to customers. Obviously Apple knows that as good as anybody because they're listening to customers. Steve Jobs said he wanted to find a need and solve a problem for a customer they don't even know that they have. As he would create products and things. The third thing he said is be the best at your niche. Your niche. He wasn't trying to be all things to all people. He was trying to innovate. He was trying to be different. He was trying to crush it in his niche. That's what I want for you, too. What is your specific niche? And then be the very best you possibly can at that. Number four, he said, don't try to beat the competition at their game. Redefine the game. Back when IBM and Microsoft was growing and Dell was doing well, he said, all these guys are fighting for the same thing. We're going to do something else. We're going to change the way it goes. What about you and your competition? Are you holding up your hand saying, oh, yes, we have a dispatch fee, yes, we have a service agreement program, yes, we have this, yes, we have that. Redefine it, change the game to get a different result. And last and certainly not least, he said, you can't do it alone. From the time he started in a garage with hiring some buddies to help him start building the first personal computer that the world knew, he knew he had to have some help. He knew that he couldn't do it alone. No different than our people in our business. People is a very, very critical part and we can't do it alone. So we've got to get the talent, we've got to find the talent, we've got to attract the talent, we've got to train the talent. Then we've got to continue to do these things. If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. It's an interesting little movie about one of the most innovative people that's ever lived on this planet. Take a good look at it, but focus on these things this week. I'm Kenny Chapman, the blue collar coach. Until we talk again, have a better and fantastic week and I'll see you next.
