People Wit

Rangkaian Artikel yang saya posting secara berseri ini saya kutip dari Buku The Apple Way : 12 Management Lessons from the World’s Most Innovative Company karya Jeffrey L. Cruikshank. Banyak Point dan pelajaran tentang management yang bisa kita ambil dari Perusahaan paling inovatif di Dunia ini. Mari kita belajar dari Keberhasilan dan Kegagalannya. Selamat Menikmati.

The trick in dealing with vital vendors is to keep them close enough, but not too close. When it comes time to throw your 15-year-old toolbox out the window and introduce a stunning new set of tools, for example, you have to woo—and throw. Here are seven other lessons from Apple’s relations with its developers:

■ Is the glass half full, half empty, or both?

How you answer this question—particularly if you’re on the vendor side—may make all the difference to the Mother Ship.

■ The person who makes your product useful is your friend. Your good friend.

Lots of products find their niches only after their companion product arrives. The horseless carriage needed the pneumatic tire, and vice versa. So, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone took good care of each other.

■ When dealing with an elephant, write tight contracts and move faster than the elephant.

How much bigger than you is your biggest supplier? If the balance of power is out of whack, tight contracts may be in order—and may not be enough.

■ When you hand over the family jewels, kiss them good-bye.

There are good reasons why people don’t divulge the secret recipe: It won’t stay secret. So, what information absolutely has to stay in-house?

■ Work with your friends to close the virtuous circle.

Software sells, computers sells; more software sells more computers.

The bigger the alligator, the less responsive the alligator.

If Bill Gates has taught us anything—besides having a brilliant business model, of course—it’s that the biggest alligators get to set

their own agendas.

■ Don’t charge the guests who bring the potluck supper.

That’s not how symbiosis is supposed to work. We help each other.

Source : The Apple Way. 12 Management Lessons from the World’s Most Innovative Company. Jeffrey L. Cruikshank.McGraw-Hill. 2006