What Jony Ive’s Years at Apple Can Teach Us About Creativity and Looking Forward
Jonathan Ive, Apple’s legendary chief design officer has announced he is leaving the company. The British designer has been pivotal in the creation of such products as the Mac, the iPod, and the iPhone that have changed Apple’s and our lives. His departure — and Apple CEO Tim Cook’s challenge in replacing him — offer an opportunity to reflect on how executives should go about the difficult job of choosing the right creative talent for their own organizations. The lesson: When choosing an innovator, look to the future, not the past.
Jonathan Ive, Apple’s legendary chief design officer has announced he is leaving the company. Media reports say his departure was long in the making and that his new, independent design firm will count Apple as a client. The British designer has been pivotal in the creation of such products as the Mac, the iPod, and the iPhone that have changed Apple’s and our lives. His departure — and Apple CEO Tim Cook’s challenge in replacing him — offer an opportunity to reflect on how executives should go about the difficult job of choosing the right creative talent for their own organizations.
To do that, let’s step back in time and learn from what Steve Jobs did when he recruited Ive as his co-pilot for Apple’s innovation journey.
In 1997, Jobs had just returned to Apple and needed to reinvigorate the innovative soul of the organization. He wanted design to be at the core of this renewal. Since Apple was a computer company at that time, you would have expected Jobs would have searched for an expert computer designer — someone well-respected in the industry.
He did not. Before joining Apple, Ive had been an independent design consultant in London. His firm, Tangerine, was involved in designing household products (for example, Tangerine was a consultant for Ideal Standard, then a major player in the bathroom and plumbing industry). The young designer then moved to Apple in 1992, but the designs he was involved in prior to 1997 were not especially successful. So, Jobs’s decision to pick him to be the senior vice president of industrial design seemed irrational.
Yet, in hindsight it was a brilliant choice. The lesson: When choosing an innovator, look to the future, not the past.
Before 1997 personal computers were mainly office machines. But the advent of the internet ushered in a new era: Computers were fast becoming a fixture in homes; people therefore would need a machine that would fit into their living rooms or kitchens.
If Jobs had looked to the past, he would have searched for an expert designer of office computers, possibly a successful one. That choice, however, would have led to the creation of another perfect, beige box. Jobs instead looked to the future: If computers would become home machines, then recruiting someone who had designed products for the homes wouldn’t be such a crazy idea.
The first product designed under Ive’s leadership was the iMac G3, introduced in 1998. It was acclaimed as one of the most revolutionary personal computers ever released, with a design language that was completely novel for the industry: a friendly shell in translucent colored plastic and an ovoid form that challenged the dominant paradigm of unsympathetic beige boxes. The same translucent plastic and colors had already spread into household products in the early 1990s (an example was Alessi’s colorful plastic kitchenware).
One takeaway: When you are picking talent for innovation endeavors, you should imagine what is coming down the pike — what the future will look like — and then understand which capabilities you will need to succeed in that future. Unless you do this first, you cannot hope to find and attract the right person.
If Tim Cook has absorbed Steve Jobs’s lesson, his choice of Ive’s successor will reveal his vision of the emerging world in which Apple will compete in the years ahead.
Editor’s note: We updated this piece to more accurately reflect Ive’s job title in the late 1990s.
Roberto Verganti is a professor of leadership and innovation at Politecnico di Milano, a board member of the European Innovation Council, and the author of Overcrowded. Designing Meaningful Products in a World Awash with Ideas.
What Jony Ive’s Years at Apple Can Teach Us About Creativity and Looking Forward
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