“If it has a stylus, they blew it”

Those 2010 words from Steve Jobs resonate today with the announcement of the iPad Pro.

The heart of the matter in that statement hints, for me, at the core of what Apple was (is?) about.

A child like apprehension of the world.

A child, as s/he grows, and tests the world’s boundaries around them, can be tyrant-like.

Steve Jobs seems to have been, from all appearances, a child-tyrant who wanted — and did — impose his view of the world unto others.

In psychology terms, I see him as having been very successful at pushing the boundaries of what was feasible.

But, strong of the personal discoveries of my own inner-self voyage, I see his accomplishments as the successes of a man who fully integrated his inner child, his inner parent and his inner adult, and who, as an adult, was not afraid of letting his inner child desires show-up.

I see in his stylus statement the reflection that he was very much in touch with his inner baby.

A baby looks at the world, and points his finger at the world.

It is a very primitive, raw, simple way to say “I am here and I see you and I want to connect”.

A child covers his or her eyes, and disappears from the world: “I cannot see you, so you cannot see me”.

At the heart of Steve Job’s vision and design principle for Apple products, I see an absolute connection with the inner child.

A child’s way is the purest form of a man-machine interface, and explains why babies naturally take on iPads and iPhones, and flick, and push, and command with ease the device faster than an adult.

He wanted the Apple products to delight us.

They delighted us because they tap into something very deep, something primitive: they tap into what the psychologist call our “reptilian brain”. The seat of emotions, of fear, or desire, of the impulse to survive and engage with the world.

Thus, the Apple product were (are?) emotional first.

I read in Steve Jobs’ stylus comment that he understood that using a tool was already a compromise, a barrier between the baby’s hand and fingers, and the world.

Usage of a tool signals the entry into a second phase of humanity development. It is the sylex tool which helped us to be more efficient.

Symbolically, the tool helps the child move from childhood to adulthood.

In that sense, Apple may signal with this product launch that it is opening now a new phase: its company adulthood.

In that evolution, the “magic” of childhood will be diluted.

Many will write, and have written, about the business changes afoot at Apple: a colored, plastic back for some iPhone models. Too many wrist band choices and model SKUs for the Apple Watch. A payment plan for the iPhone.

At the heart of it, I am more interested in seeing how Apple will resolve this subconscious shift of a child-company to an integrated child-adult-parent company.

How does it continue to tap into, nurture, foster, grow, radiate the magic of its inner child’s heart… all the while integrating its inner adult and inner parent, made of managers, product roadmaps, financial concerns.

That is the real challenge facing Apple, Inc.

It has nothing to do with the rational brain of its managers and shareholders, and everything to do with accessing the heart of its founder, keeping his vision alive, and balancing it correctly with the boundaries of a child now growing up.

Are companies, families?

Since the US Supreme Court decision of "Citizen United", I've asked myself about the long term implications of this decision to corporate cultures, and the impending backlash . 

In this decision, the US Supreme Court has established that a legal entity, like a capitalistic, money making corporation, is, like a private individual, a human, entitled to protection of free speech under Article 1 of the US Constitution.

 

But is a corporation a human with feelings?

A group of humans, sharing the largest part of the day together, action driven but creating expressed and repressed emotions and feelings?

Are companies like a family, sometimes functional, most of the time dysfunctional?

And if dysfunctional, what is the real work needed to make it a bit more functional?

We'll explore this theme in various blog posts.

Today, I want to explore the implicit hiatus and disconnect baked in the apparently "caring" message which companies send their employees, when telling them 'we "care" about you'.

Indeed, for human resources and motivation development reasons, companies often portray themselves as "caring for us".

But does a free supply of food, like at the Twitter cafeteria or on the Google campus mean that the Google Board of Director cares for the employees the same way they care for their family?

When phrased that way, the answer obviously appears to be "no".

Our rational brains tell us that those "benefits" are just a way to manipulate the employees into a higher productivity: stay on the campus a bit longer, work a bit harder, and tell your friends about how wonderful working there actually is.

The problem is that, beneath the surface lies the seed of a fundamental deception.

If and when the times will get hard (because they will, even for Google, Twitter and Facebook), the potential for an immense disappointment exists. 

It is there, built-in already, not only waiting to disappoint (of course) those who will receive their pink slip, but more importantly for those who will survive the big lay-off. 

Their heart will turn sour and angry, at this corporate culture who now seems double-faced, after having told us that they "cared".

Employees will forget that they gave their tacic acknowledgement to this "trade". 

Yes, it is easy to accept the free food and drinks. 

But the second part of the "human resources deal" is left in the shadow: you are expendable, and when our corporate blind spot will suddenly emerge, it will be too late.

And so, I posit, corporations and companies are not functional families, where one can verbalize safely the negative consequences which are looming in case of danger.

Companies, thus, have to work harder at establishing a true and honest communication of what is the real "deal" passed between themselves and their employees.

Doing so sends the message across the organization that it is OK to talk about what is not talked about.

And so, maybe, through the capillaries of the corporate entity, the true voices of the organization will surface, bringing back to the HEART of the system the weak warning signals demanding a necessary change.