Innovation is a Fight
Apple is eventually doomed. Yes, the most valuable company on the planet will slowly fade into stagnant mediocrity. It will be replaced by something that they will not predict and they will not see coming. This horrifically efficient culling is a fact of life in technology because it is an industry populated by a demographic intent not on building a better mousetrap, but who avidly ask, “Why the hell do we need mousetraps?”
Apple’s doom will start quietly and I doubt anyone can predict how it will actually begin. It will be historians who, decades from now, will easily pin its demise to a single event that will appear obvious given years of quantifiable insight. And it will only be “obvious” because the real details will have been twisted, clouded, or forgotten entirely, so it will all seem clearer, faster, and simpler. Their explanation will start with the passing of Steve Jobs, and they will draw a clear line to a subsequent event of significance and will say, “Here. This is it. This is when it began.”
Executive rearrangements have been going on at Apple for years. Remember Mark Papermaster? Avie Tevanian? Jon Rubinstein? Steve Sakoman? Tony Fadell? Sina Tamaddon? Bertrand Serlet? Fred Anderson? Nancy Heinen? There’s likely a compelling departure backstory for all of these key players, but the sheer length of this incomplete list gives some perspective to the recent announcement regarding Scott Forstall and John Browett - no big deal. Happens all the time.
Maybe.
Like Papermaster before him, all the signals point to the fact that Browett was not a cultural fit, which is Apple-speak for the organism having an intense allergic reaction to his arrival. Forstall, however, was old school. In my years at Apple, the Caffe Macs chatter about Forstall was that he was the only legit successor to Jobs because he displayed a variety of Jobsian characteristics. Namely:
- He was an asshole, but…
- Success seemed to surround him, and…
- No one was quite sure about the secret recipe to achieve this success.
While I’d continued to hear about the disdain amongst the executive ranks about Forstall after I left Apple, I was still shocked about his departure, because while he was in no way Steve Jobs, he was the best approximation of Steve Jobs that Apple had left. You came to expect a certain amount of disruption around him because that’s how business was done at Apple - it was well-managed internal warfare. Innovation is not born out out of a committee; innovation is a fight. It’s messy, people die, but when the battle is over, something unimaginably significant has been achieved.
With Forstall’s departure, I believe his former lieutenants have been distributed to Bob Mansfield, Jony Ive, Eddy Cue, and Craig Federighi. While there is no doubt in my mind that these are talented and qualified leaders, are they disruptive? Are they incentivized as such? Because from where I’m standing, the guy in charge is possibly the most talented operational leader on the planet. And an operational leader’s job is ferret out and exterminate all things that make their world less predictable and measured.
The word that worried me the most in the press release was in the first sentence. The word was “collaboration”. Close your eyes and imagine a meeting with Steve Jobs. Imagine how it proceeds and how decisions are made. Does the word collaboration ever enter your mind? Not mine. I’m just sitting there on pins and needles waiting for the guy to explode and rip us to shreds because we phoned it in on a seemingly unimportant icon.
As someone who spends much of his time figuring out how to get teams to work together, the premium I’m placing on volatility might seem odd. I believe Apple benefits greatly from having a large, stable operational team that consistently and steadily gets shit done, but I also believe that in order to maintain its edge Apple needs a group of disruptors.
Love him or hate him, Scott Forstall’s departure makes Apple a more stable company, and I wonder if that is how it begins.
The Elegant Email
For me, the amount of email that arrives is inversely proportionate to my amount of free time. This means the less time I have to read mail, the more mail that arrives. Greater minds than mine have attempted to tackle this unfortunate time management situation, so I’m going to keep it simple. You and I are busy people. We may or may not know each other, but we have the same goal - how can each of us effectively surf an ever-growing pile of information?
To this end, I would like to come to an agreement with you. Let’s agree to small set of rules that we’ll follow when we mail each other, ok?
An Email Contract
Before we start, there are two kinds of email: original content and follow-on content. Original content, an email that is the first mail in a potential thread, is the focus of this piece unless otherwise noted. Follow-on mails, the ones where everyone else jumps into the conversation willy-nilly, are an entirely other article.
Let’s begin…
Say something of substance with your subject. (Perhaps with poetry.) The first line of defense against the absurd number of unread messages is the subject line. For a new topic, my expectation is that the subject line gives me an inkling of what I’m about to read. “Question” is not a subject. “Question regarding the impending disaster in engineering” is a better subject. The best, “Calamity is a man’s true touchstone.”
As I’m considering a subject line, I work under the erroneous, paranoid assumption that the someone I’m sending an email to is not going to read it. Chances are that they will, but when I fret about them not reading the mail, I get amazingly creative about making the subject line descriptive, relevant, and poetic.
Yes, poetry.
In the world of databases, there is a concept called an index. Simply put, an index makes finding the location of a single row of data much faster. A substantial portion of the field of computer science is devoted to the design and analysis of these data structures because computer scientists know what you know: finding what you’re looking for quickly is awesome.
When you take a moment to add a bit of art to your subject line, you are indexing the mail in the minds of those who read it. You are making an impression, and that means not only are they more likely to read it, but also to remember it.
A three (or four) paragraph limit. I believe email is not a long form communication medium, and my rule of thumb is that an email should be no longer than three (or four) paragraphs. You might hate this stipulation.
Here’s the deal. I’m not suggesting the three-paragraph limit because I’m in a hurry. What I’m asking you to do is think. I’ve made it past your subject line - super. Now, I’m staring at 14 paragraphs regarding whether we should or should not open a new office in Berlin. My unfortunate knee-jerk reaction to 14 paragraphs is to flag the message for later reading. Flagging a message for later reading creates the same fake sense of accomplishment as putting an item on a to-do list - you give yourself permission to never think about it again.
Our Berlin office is a big decision and every single one of your 14 paragraphs demonstrates this importance, but are we really going to make a decision of this magnitude via email? No. There’s great content in your Berlin office opus, but I’m going to have lots of questions for which you are going to ask for clarification, and suddenly we’re in the middle of a lengthy email thread and my question is, Wouldn’t this have been easier if we had just sat down and had it out face to face?
One of the many joys of email revolves around instant gratification. There is a topic that is suddenly bugging you in the middle of the night, and you’re not going to sleep until action, any action, has been taken, so you write an email. I get it.
Think. Yes, you want the problem solved, but is email the right medium for solving the problem? If the answer is yes, then start writing. When you get to that fourth paragraph, ask yourself again: is email the right medium? Are you writing this because you want to get it out of your system RIGHT NOW or because email is the correct place to start this conversation?
As a person who spends a good portion of his life figuring out what he thinks by writing it down, I have learned to recognize when an email is therapy is for me and only me. I still write that 17-paragraph opus about the horrifying mess that is our interview process, but halfway through the rant I realize this mail is just for me.
The amount of editing time doubles for each paragraph. Your instinct is to hit “Send”. It’s so satisfying to get to the end of your thought and just fire it off into the ether, but my request is that you reread it. I am particularly bad at this.
What makes an idea interesting to me is partially that I’m thinking it. In fact, it’s so interesting that I’m going to write you an email on this interesting topic because by doing so I’m infecting you with its exciting and obvious interestingness. For me, the problem is that in my rabid fury of interestingness, my typing suffers. I drop words, I don’t tie up logic, and often what starts as a well-intentioned email turns into a confusing, multi-paragraph mess.
With each paragraph you write, double the amount of time you spend editing. It’s not just grammar and spelling errors that might be hurting your credibility. Is your point clear, literate, and concise? Have you pruned aggressively to find the core of what you’re saying? With each additional paragraph, the higher the chance becomes that you’ve made an egregious mistake that might make your email confusing and forgettable.
If your instinct is to hit “Send” without any editing, my thought is that you’re more interested in therapy than progress. This thing you are writing is important or we wouldn’t be here, but by choosing to send this thing to others, the burden of clarity and coherence is on you.
A Sense of Doneness and Humanity
It takes practice, but after I’ve written three (or four) paragraphs, after I’ve reread them three (or four) times, after I’ve written my alliterative subject line, I am looking for a calming sense of doneness. This email… is done. It clearly, intelligently, and briefly describes my thought. I’ve exposed a truth. I’ve constructed a call to action. Now I finish with a smidge of humanity - I sign it.
I look at every signature in every single email and I assign a humanity value to it. Sincerely? Cordially? Best? Thoughts? No signature at all? You’ve taken the time to write these paragraphs, to transcribe your thoughts, and you’ve left me hanging?
At the gig, we’re writing a lot of mail because we’re very busy. I’ve noticed that we’ve taken to blasting through our paragraphs and either using a default signature or no signature at all and I’m of the opinion that an unsigned email is a lost opportunity to say something small and important.
Email is imprecise. It is easy to misinterpret. Email is a digital force of nature. It’s not going anywhere, but email, while convenient and sometimes efficient, is dehumanizing. An original signature tailored to the email, no matter how brief, is a small reminder there is a human behind these three (or four) paragraphs who is worth your attention.
With hope,
Rands
The Second Test
A quick search of Rands in Repose archives reveals that I have never mentioned Piers Anthony as a major influence. I consumed the Xanth series over the course of several years, and am certain much of a formative teenage wit is based on the literary stylings of Anthony.
These books have not aged well, or perhaps I’ve aged too much. When I recently picked up The Source of Magic, I appreciated the trip down memory lane, but it’s a lane firmly entrenched in my youth. Other books of the time, Ender’s Game and Asimov’s Robot and Foundations series, have stood the test of time as evidenced by my ability to endlessly reread them.
Anthony wrote a mostly forgettable series called The Bio of a Space Tyrant. The series describes the rise of the Tyrant of Jupiter, hilariously named “Hope Hubris”. Don’t read it, but know that the main character’s talents has stuck with me through the years because it relates to why you think engineers don’t like you.
Show Me Your Power
Whether you’re an engineer or not, if you’re reading this there is a good chance that there are engineers in your life. And that means there is an equal chance that at some point an engineer appeared to not like you and you weren’t quite sure why. Engineers are not a rare breed these days, but they are an odd breed. I’ve documented a lot of their, uh, attributes over the years. I’ve explained why they’re system thinkers, where they like to work, and why they hate meetings, but I haven’t explained why they hate you.
Ok, hate is a strong word. How about distrust? How about the sense that when you’re sitting in the room that they’re looking at you like you’re an alien when all you’re thinking is you’re the alien.
There is a variety of nerd quirks that can lead to this social impedance. Yes, we are generally low on emotional intelligence. Yes, our preference is that we could resolve whatever called for this crap meeting via email. Yes, we don’t like like talking to, you know, people, but a lot of that social awkwardness goes away when you’ve passed the Second Test.
Back to Piers Anthony’s forgettable Tyrant series. Hope Hubris (seriously, that was his name) had the ability to look at someone and immediately understand their character. As the series progressed, characters in the book would ask him to “show me your power” and he’d immediately respond with a complete analysis of their character. I’d dig up a specific example, but I can’t bear to read these books again.
Piers Anthony is a perfect read for the nerd teenager. He taps into the unabashed imagination of youth combined with the complex insecurities of the teen years. He also empowers. His Xanth books describe a land where magic exists everywhere and each person has a unique magical talent. In Tyrant, Hope’s character assessment talent is the same type of empowering, impossible magical talent that appeals to the awkward nerd teen.
I’ve never forgotten Hope’s talent because it’s a test I employ on every new person in my professional world. It is the Second Test.
The Second Test
In your company, there are three kinds of people. There are those you are aware of, but who don’t immediately affect your world. There are those who mildly affect your world and upon whom you have a lightweight dependency. And there are those who are an active part of your world. You depend on them.
I don’t want to depend on you. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that as an engineer I irrationally believe that anything I don’t build with my own hands is going to get fucked up by someone else. I believe this because I’ve spent a good portion of my life watching other well-meaning people sit down at a computer and simply… make things harder for themselves.
It’s an irrational, unfair, and annoying perspective, but when you’re sitting there across from an engineer who has been forced to depend on you, he or she is wondering, “How are they are going fuck up my shit?”
The good news is that you already passed the First Test - you were hired. The folks sitting around the table hired you and that means they believe you should be there. Hopefully, it was a nontrivial process to get hired. Hopefully, they put you through a professional wringer and now that you’re hired you’re basking in a sense of accomplishment. Bad news, the Second Test is harder.
The Second Test is: you must build something of value as perceived by the organism.
It’s a deceptively slippery test, so let me explain each part:
You must build something. You’re thinking that I’m talking about coding or designing, but I’m not. I’m talking about a thing that you built by yourself, or for which you led development with others. You have mad skills of some sort and you have used those skills to build something that has previously not existed for the team.
Of value. This thing that you’ve built, this process that you’ve defined, this story that you told, it must be clear what value it’s adding to the company. You rebuilt the front page of the website - terrific - does it tell the story of the company better? Does it feel like the company? You optimized our bug tracking system - splendid - did you actually make it better or are you just trying to show you can do useful stuff? This leads us to our final clause.
As perceived by the organism. This is the hard part. I see that you’ve built this thing and I attended the meeting where you eloquently explained the value of this thing, but the test isn’t passed without independent confirmation. Even if I sat there nodding the entire time as you pitched me on the value, I’m not signed off until Arthur walks by, sticks his head in my office, and says, “Did you see the thing? That is going to save me hours each week. Awesome.”
Engineers are meritocratic, which means we don’t really care about your resume or your title. While your resume might be an interesting story that eventually led to your hiring, we want to see what you can build. Right now, that alien sitting across the table is wondering about your power. You passed the First Test, so the question now is, what power do you have and how are you going to use it for good? What you see in their eyes is not hate, it’s a deep skepticism.
I’m Skeptical of Experts
An unwatched successful business gets fat. The money pouring in means there’s far too much work, which means you go on a hiring spree. What was 15 folks rapidly becomes 50, and the experts start to show up. Experts are the folks who are allegedly really qualified to do a job. See, at 15 people everyone did a little bit of everything, but there is no time for that now because of the success. You think you need HR, Marketing, Sales, and Business Development.
Incorrect. What you need is people who get shit done.
I am not suggesting that the hardworking people in these other disciplines don’t have amazingly complex and difficult jobs, but I do think they should be able to clearly describe the work they do and the value they provide… to anyone. They need to pass the Second Test, and that means being able to fully and clearly explain your job to the rest of your team not with words, but with action.
Most folks believe that if they can describe a job that they can do it. Most folks are wrong. I’ve been spun and burned by too many fast-talking, charismatic experts in my career to trust anything but results. The Second Test is not the exclusive domain of engineers. In most groups of people, there is a means by which you earn your stripes. The difference with engineers is a combination of their low tolerance for spin and their deep desire for measurability.
Passing the Second Test when engineers are involved means that you’ve built something that fully and clearly explains your power.