>"Arguments at Apple are personal and confrontational. This began at the top, and it is part of the company’s culture."<p>That sounds like a terrible environment.
“High-performance teams should be at each other’s throats” is how one person with relationships with multiple Apple executives summarized the culture. “You don’t get to the right trade-off without each person advocating aggressively for his position.”<p>How ironic -- when I was at Apple in the 90s, our meetings were scattered creampuff things and this is how I imagined Microsoft would be. Now that I'm at Microsoft it's the other way around . . . :-)
At my last company we had one project everyone knew was in crisis, but it was 'strategic' and mandated from on high. At one meeting the product manager wanted to focus us on the highest priority issues - it turned out to be a list of more than 10 poorly defined issues. Great job, great people, but management wanted everything and they wanted it now.<p>Nine months later and I've just finished my probation period at a small, scrappy startup with a very specific market niche. Focus is really hard and it has to be driven by leadership from the top.
I hope people don't read things like this as advice for things they could recreate at their own companies. There are lots of others way to be successful without being outright mean or vindictive.
Sounds like a massive exercise in ball waving ego' nonsense, I am pretty sure this is not how real progress is made... It's not as if anything Apple did was truly original (suit on), they are great finishers but I believe true innovation comes from co-operation.
I heard Adam Lashinsky speak on a recent Stanford Uni podcast. Pretty remarkable insights on Apple and Steve Jobs. Jobs turned the place into a pretty unique organisation.<p>Podcast:
<a href="http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2931" rel="nofollow">http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2931</a>