So no one forced you to work at Apple

I got a comment this morning that I decided to use as the title for this post.  It was one of those comments where the person making the comment couldn't even come up with a fake name or email address.  I'm guessing it could be from someone working as an individual contributor at Apple.  It's not a particularly good comment, but it actually isn't a bad question.

It does require a little background to answer properly. I apologize up front for the length of the post, but the answer to the question isn't simple.  Skip to the end if you want the short version.

I started work for Apple in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1984 as a member of the first large wave of hiring as Apple transitioned from doing business in Canada by way of rep firms to handling it directly through setting up an Apple Canada organization.  Before that I had been the sales manager for a regional computer chain in Canada's eastern provinces, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia.  I had started work with them in 1982 just a couple of months after buying one of the first Apple II+ machines to hit New Brunswick.  I had bought the computer to do a newsletter for the Canadian Angus Association where I was a field marketing specialist for the Maritimes after dispersing our herd of 200 head of purebred cattle in 2001.

It was a heady time in the computer business.  Within months of joining the computer reseller, we went from one store to four, and were selling millions of dollars of Apple product.  I had a number of sales people and technical people that I managed in the four stores.  Things were going great for Apple in spite of a few tough months.  As a dealer representative I had gotten to see Steve demonstrate the first Mac.  When he dragged the mouse across the screen and created a circle, I made the decision that I wanted to work for Apple.

In the fall of 1984, my opportunity came.  Our chain of stores was rapidly losing its Apple focus and doing everything possible to win an IBM authorization.  I was offered the opportunity to invest in the company and turned it down.  Then I was given the task of telling the sales people who were working for me that a new comp plan designed to make our company more attractive as a takeover target was going to make them more money.  It was a flat out lie, and I told management that I couldn't do it.  I had a great team of top recent college graduates that I had recruited for the company.  In the end I resigned my position, and though I was offered another position in the company, I decided to leave.

When Apple found out I was no longer working for the dealership, they eventually offered me a job and I started to work officially for Apple on November 26, 1984.  Part of the agreement for the job was to move to Halifax, NS so on Christmas day 1984 in the midst of a blizzard, we headed to Halifax to move into our new home which included the first mortgage in our lives.  Apple had also offered me considerably less than I had been making as a manager in the dealer world, but I had taken the offer without hesitation since I believed going to Apple was a great move, and I didn't have a job.

Within a few months, the guy who was hired to work with me in Halifax was fired for being somewhat ethically challenged. For almost two years, I ended up running Apple's business in four Canadian provinces by myself.  Needless to say it was a job that required an unbelievable amount of work since I had all channels which included over a dozen universities, hundreds of school boards, and a few dozen resellers with some VARs sprinkled into the mix.  I loved the job and was absolutely successful in it, closing what at the time was he largest single purchase order win for Apple.  I got the Nova Scotia Department of Education to commit to one Apple IIe for each of their classrooms which ended up being a nearly two million dollar deal.  I eventually got to help hire someone to help me, and when I got to the point of not being able to really advance any in Apple without moving, we made the decision to move back to the United States.  We ended up in the Columbia, MD office.

That was where I got my first real taste of Apple management.  I had taken the job based on a rosy scenario painted by the regional and district managers.  It turned out that the one reseller I was given was near bankruptcy so I made the tough decision not to sell them any product without money up front. The reseller went under, and most hardware manufacturers lost a lot of money.  Apple didn't, but then again I didn't make any money in commissions either since I hadn't sold any product.

My next assignment was a reseller whom local management disliked with a passion because they felt that they sold their computers at too low a price without providing good service and support.  I immediately found out that they were absolutely a great reseller and that the biggest problem was that through one of Apple's convoluted pricing schemes, they weren't able to get pricing as good as their biggest competitor.   I quickly figured out the commitments they needed to make, they got on their executive jet, and I met them in California for a talk with Apple executives.  It went very well, they got the pricing they needed, and in less than a year I helped them grow their Apple business nearly 100% to about $13M dollars most of which came out of one store.  They were a great reseller, priding themselves on solving every single customer problem that came to their attention.  They offered training and sent out dozens of on site service people every day.  They were a pleasure to work with compared to some resellers I've seen.

Unfortunately as is often the case, success breeds some nasty things.  My manager decided that I needed a lesson in humility. He rigged a deal by providing special pricing and product availability to a competitor who hadn't even called on my reseller's customer.  My reseller was not pleased to say the least, but I let them draw their own conclusions as to what happened.   When I complained to HR about the violations of ethics, HR went right to my manager who made the decision that they needed to get rid of me.  He and the regional manager got in a car and went on a fishing expedition to my reseller.  They told the reseller they suspected me of ethics violations.  In one of those great moments in my career, the CEO of the reseller and they were a huge presence in the DC market and not just for Apple, told Apple management if they harmed one hair on my balding head they would put their whole executive staff on an airplane to Cupertino and quickly explain who really had the ethics problem.

About that time, my manager conveniently lost my review which he had already written and signed.  He came up with a far less positive one which I refused to sign.  I went to upper level management and said they could either fire me or find me another job under another manager.  I was a good enough sales person that they didn't want to loose me so they got me another job in higher education reporting to another manager.

It was about this time that I started to figure out that most Apple first line managers had been driven close to the edge by something.  I had a very successful first year (1988) in higher education where I spent most of my time away from my family living in the Marriott in Blacksburg, VA.  In 1989 after coming to the conclusion that the way to stay sane at Apple was to stay away from Apple management as much as possible, we moved once again for Apple.  This time it was to Roanoke, Va.  The move was easily justified based on the T&E savings.   In making the move, I believed that I had taken myself off the management track in an effort to stay sane and spend more time with my family. Of course I wasn't displeased when my former district and regional managers got laid off in reorganizations, but it didn't change our moving plans.

At the same time my role in our education team was growing rapidly, and though I wasn't a manager I effectively had two or three people who depended on me for guidance and help.  Business was great except for the one year that Apple credited all my VA state contract business to a New York rep and refused to do anything about it.  I was to learn that Apple and commission problems go hand in hand.

Business was so good in higher education, that in 1992 Apple decided to do a dedicated Higher Education district.  I initially had decided to not apply for the manager's job since I thought that not living near the office would doom my candidacy.  It was when one of the most unethical reps I had ever run into became a candidate for the position, that I felt I had no choice if I wanted to protect myself and those other reps who had come to rely on me.  That summer I was awarded the job and finished the year as Apple's Higher Education rep of the year.  I was also given a move package to go back to the DC area.  I managed to convince them to let me do the job remotely.

The hiring regional manager for the Higher Ed district manager had told me, "to be careful what you wish for, you might just get it."  He was right, though you don't often know what you're wishing for in a management job.  The responsibility of building a team of people to do a job leads me to start answering the question of why work for a company if there are bad things going on and in essence no one is forcing you to work there?

First of all, in spite of the challenges of working at Apple, the early time with Apple was the most wonderful period of my life, if I ignore all the things I missed with my family.  It was a great adventure, we were defining news ways of doing business and solving problems for thousands of very grateful people.  We were the guys in the white hats in spite of some of the inevitable corporate weirdness which I'm sure shows up in varying degrees in almost every company.

Maybe I'm absolutely wrong in my approach which has taken me a while to define, but I believe that you can be either be a leader or a manager, the choice is yours.  I started out as a manger, but quickly figured out how to be a leader.

Once you become a leader, you cannot just walk away from your people if you believe that your absence will put them in greater danger.

It's interesting that of those on my very first team that I hired at Apple, only one person is still left at Apple.  One person has gone to a career as a teacher and two others are high level managers, one at Dell and the other at Sun.  We had a great run as a team, finishing as the top overall team based on revenue plan achievement at Apple in the five years that I was in Higher Ed.

In 1996 things started to change at Apple, there were layoffs, reorganizations and times were tough.  I ended up being moved to the business channel when Apple decided to manage east coast higher education from Texas.

In that time frame I actually interviewed with Dell, but I decided to stay at Apple for a very personal reason.  At the time my high school age soon who had been a very high achiever quit trying academically.  It was real challenge pulling him out of his slump, but my connection to Apple and his eventual connection to computers and Apple really helped turn his life around.  He has ended up a terminal loving Linux geek, but his work as an Apple service technician at a local university taught him the value of a college education so I'm thankful that my job at Apple played a role in that.

As is the case in all companies there are plenty of ups and downs, good and bad managers, and lots of discussion of all things by the employees.  From 1996 to 2002, I was fortunate enough to work under the best manager I had during my career at Apple.

Few people appreciate how much a good manager can make your job not only easier but a place to be successful.  My manager did all of that and more.  He had gambled on me when he brought me over the business team, but I turned in results for him.  In fact  I did so well that he helped me put together a presentation in 1998 or 1999 that eventually led to the re-creation of the Apple Federal team.

I believe it was in 2001 that the hand writing on the wall regarding his job became apparent to him. This also marks the point where Apple upper management went from being just incompetent to perhaps actively deranged on occasion.

A whole new team of managers were brought in from a software company.  They were all under forty and replaced a whole raft of managers who were much older and much more experienced in the business group.  This was done after the spectacular failure of a program that was forced on the managers who ended up being replaced.  That program was the enterprise kiosk program.  A Vice President, who was a nice enough guy, had bought off on the idea that Apple could penetrate the enterprise by selling iMac kiosks.  In spite of many protests, most of Apple's enterprise sales force had spent two very unsuccessful years trying their best to make that happen.  In a culture such as Apple's, if a VP tells you to do it, you do it.  Many of the enterprise people ended up being laid off for their failure to achieve an impossible plan.

My team had actually gotten a pass on the second year of the "Kiosk Crusade" since we were starting to focus on the federal market.

In a typical for Apple moment, my manager had only gotten to have his first real meeting with his boss's boss when we made the case for federal.  The idea of him being able to go around his manager when the ill fated "Kiosk Crusade" started is just inconceivable in the Apple environment.

Even though he was a good Apple soldier by doing what he was told,  he shared in the blame for the failure of the "Kiosk Crusade."  He pretty quickly went from having dozens of people reporting to him to just having me as a direct report.   He tried as hard as any one individual could to be positive and add value to the new organization.  That was a pretty hard task given he had to watch the newcomers making ever mistake known to computer selling mankind.  It was almost like watching the wheel be reinvented.  The sad thing was that everyone knew these guys came in at higher salaries and with boat loads of options.  As far as I can tell the ones who haven't left rich, still haven't contributed much value to Apple.

Eventually my manager left on his own accord but in actuality was forced out. Then I was faced with revolving door management which went from someone who was a very nice guy but completely useless as a manager who could help you get things done to the infamous guy who thought Dell laptops were better than Powerbooks.  He had a couple of other quotes that were even better.  Once he told a system integrator that they were right to throw their Macs out in late nineties.  He was so enamored of listening to himself that he didn't hear the customer trying to say that he felt it was the wrong thing to have done.  Then in an inside the beltway meeting he told a high level government official at the end of meeting where he had acted like a knot on a log, that there were really good reasons for the government to use OS X even if it happened to be the worst OS on the planet. Of course by then the meeting was ending and no one had time to hear his weird reasoning.

At this point in my career which was summer 2003, I felt like I was the only thing standing between my team and a deranged monster which happened to be the clueless Dell loving VP.  He was implementing comp plans that were clearly unfair, unethical, and maybe even illegal.  I complained to the VP of HR but was told that Apple VPs "have the right to make mistakes."  The rest of HR was of no help.  When most of the nearly unavailable first run G5s that we needed to make our number were shipped to Va. Tech's cluster with our full approval since we knew it was a great thing for Apple but a bad thing for our wallets, we were blamed for missing our number. 

This was after more than doubling Apple's federal business in the two previous years. In fact I had been named Apple Business Manager of the Year, two years prior.  The only reason I hadn't been given it the previous year was that they decided not to give the award.

It was always hilarious that Steve would say that he never wanted to pre-announce things, but it was one of his favorite tactics.

When the G5 was announced in June 2003, high end professional system orders by government customers completely dried up. The sales force was typically blamed for the failure to deliver their numbers which had been based on having G5s to sell in July, but which didn't actually start arriving in volume until October 2003.

Our Dell loving VP relished the fact that we had missed our number.  Of course there was also the problem of the Apple can't count very well finance guys stopping the collection of a good chunk of our numbers in the summer of 2003. Our Apple VP apparently didn't let that minor fact slow him down.

This Apple VP was on a mission to teach our team something.  At our sales conference he even pulled me aside and told me that after the regular sales meeting, he was going to have a special meeting for us and take us "behind the woodshed for a spanking."  He arranged for us to get plunger of the year award for not making our number (which was a 70% growth over the previous year) and then he had his special meeting where he proceeded to humiliate our team for our performance.  He even neglected to provide us with a bus for transportation as promised to the hotel awards banquet.

Professionally the time from September 2003 until July 2004 was the toughest time I have ever faced.  I protected my employees the best I could in trying to meet the nearly impossible requirements thrown at us.  I took as much of the heat as I could, knowing full well that things without me would be worse.

I can remember the Dell loving VP ridiculing my Q1 forecast for FY04, insinuating that I was making up numbers which were impossible for my team to achieve.  Not only did we hit the numbers we exceeded them.  Unfortunately the VP didn't hang around to congratulate folks, he stopped coming to meetings at Apple and just left the company.

In one of those too weird to believe moments, we got one of those rare communications for the Worldwide VP of Sales thanking our ex-VP for his contributions and wishing him well in his endeavors.

Unfortunately when VPs leave, their comp plans, business plans, and sometimes henchmen remain behind.

I'll never know exactly what was going on behind the scenes, but it took me until May of 2004 to get my team's commissions paid correctly.  Even then the theft of one of our government accounts had taken place with the full blessing of Apple's executive management team.  I took a stand against the unethical behaviors and was shown the door.  The sale which was stolen would have had a much greater impact on the wallets of my team than on mine.  However, if you're a leader and doing the right thing, you stand up for people even if it might cost your job.  I don't regret my decision.  My retirement account might have other thoughts.

Whatever, the reason I'm gone from Apple, and Apple has continued their efforts to excise most of the people who worked for me.  It's unfortunate for Apple since these are exceptional sales people who continue to believe in Apple products in spite of the treatment that they have received at the hands of Apple's corporate management.

This type of culture may be the norm in American corporations, and I don't pretend to know that one way or the other.  I do know that there are few ex-Apple people who left the company on their own.  Some companies can depend on their ex-employees to help them close deals.  Apple isn't one of those companies.

Apple at the highest level has a hard time understanding sales people.  I have to assume the company believes that these fired  people are ones who weren't doing a good job for the company. Of all the people Apple has let go over the years,  I'm sure there are some of those in the group, but I also know that there were many forced out, not because they weren't doing their job, but because the people above them at Apple weren't doing their jobs and needed scapegoats.

That happens far too often at Apple in the sales side, perhaps that's not the case on the product side, but that is the way it is in world of Apple sales.  My contention is that a better managed sales force at Apple would have led to great success for Apple.

It is one of those things we'll never know, but hopefully the stories about it make for some reading on a boring news day.

Also hopefully I've answered the question of why stay at Apple since no one is forcing you to stay.  I'll let the employees still there talk about the technology addiction and dedication to their customers that also plays a role in staying at Apple even when your manager is telling you Dell makes better products.

If you want to read more about leadership, I can highly recommend John West's website, "The Only Trait of a Leader", and his book with the same name.  John is a friend and a very smart guy in the world of supercomputers.

If you can take any more of my ramblings, you can check out my post, "True leadership," over at my View from the Mountain blog.  Someday I'll turn all of this into a book, and it can start to gather dust on the shelf.

Comments

[Lawrence]

"This type of culture may be the norm in American corporations..."

Sure it is. VPs are among the most unpredictable of all the wilderness creatures you can run across.

I'm fascinated by these glimpses inside Apple, but they leave me wondering: how do you account for Apple's success as a brand and as a product-design company in spite of these things? I hope that doesn't sound wrong, I really want to know your insider thoughts on this.

[ocracokewaves]

Well as I've mentioned in some other posts which you might have missed, I not certain that the culture is the same over on the product side.

For one thing, Steve loves product design and is intimately involved in it. He absolutely hates meeting with customers unless he's on a stage so he stays out of the sales side of Apple as much as possible.

Another thought is that quite possibly Apple's product side has been so good that it has more than made up for some of the weaknesses and dysfunction on the sales side.

However, when you look at it from another perspective, the iPod is really the product that in conjunction with the iTunes Music Store has brought Apple back to relevance. The computers as nice as they are haven't done that.

The argument that I have used before is that my analysis of the sales side is right because how otherwise can you explain what are arguably the best computers and certainly the best operating system in the world ending up with something between 2-3% worldwide market share.

I think Apple is facing an interesting time. While their computers are very good. Are they good enough to really make a lot of people change and does Apple have the management structure to support that growth?

I once shared the story of Steve lecturing the field sales force when asked by someone why Apple never advertised their pro products. Steve said that if he advertised he could just fire the field sales force.

In that comment is the key, you have one side of the company valued because I don't think Steve would ever consider firing key designers and software engineers. Yet it is one of the first things out of his mouth when thinking about sales.

Steve is brilliant product guy and through that has been able to create and maintain a great brand almost singlehandedly.

What happens when Steve's no longer around is another matter altogether. I don't think there is a strong personality on the product side to take his place. Without Steve being there I think the dysfunctional side will end up running the company, and we'll all suffer.

[Labrat]

This is a fascinating read as always. It is an insider's view into Apple with deep insights in the art of business.

I can definitely understand how a full-force charisma like Steve Jobs can be the driving force behind Apple's creativity while harming long-term sales. He is more like a great artist -- demanding and hard to get along with but having an unique charm all his own. Creating an innovative high-quality product is about not compromising and the art of sales is all about relationships that will always involve some kind of compromise.

See the performace of VPs at the WWDC 2006 keynote pretty much reinforces what you say about VPs in general. They look like a very tense bunch, not from the stage but trying to please Steve.

Also their recent firing of Apple staff that downloaded illegal copies of the leopard preview seems to illustrate a lack of empathy for the people that represent the human face of Apple. These aren't the first reports of the kind.

I feel that Apple's success with the iPod owes a lot to what caused its downfall in the PC market. A heavily guarded proprietary technology clearly works for digital music players as long as users have other means to get music under their full control onto it and a nice piece of software like iTunes to manage an otherwise chaotic collection.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter to me if the iPod is the only thing going for them as long as they make great computers.

To be fair, I'm sure there are two sides to any story but you write with balance and though you are merciless with Apple's faults there is not a hint of malicious bitterness.

Please do continue writing.

[Juan de Dios Santander Vela]

You said: “[…] That comment is the key, you have one side of the company valued because I don't think Steve would ever consider firing key designers and software engineers. Yet it is one of the first things out of his mouth when thinking about sales.”

Can it be that Steve is still bitten by the memory of John Sculley, a marketing guy himself?

[felix Hofmann]

very interesting, thank you