May 27, 2009
When Fortune named Apple “America’s Most Admired Company” as well as “Most Admired for Innovation,” honors owing largely to the success of the iPhone, Steve Jobs revealed that a “stop-doing” strategy figured centrally into Apple’s approach.
What he said was: “We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done.”That’s the mindset.
And step one? Create a solid stop-doing list.
you absolutely must have a “stop-doing” list to accompany your to-do list
Sounds simple, but few do it. Guru Jim Collins says you absolutely must have a “stop-doing” list to accompany your to-do list. As a practical matter, he advises developing a strong discipline around first giving careful thought to prioritizing goals and objectives, and then eliminating the bottom 20 percent of the list. If as CEO you do that, and demand that everyone do that, including designers and engineers with respect to the stuff they’re building, your ugly crap quotient goes way down.
*Matthew E. May is the author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing
and the ChangeThis manifesto called Creative Elegance. He spent nearly a decade as a close adviser to Toyota and works with creative teams and senior leaders at a number of top Fortune companies.
This text is from an interview with Matthew E. May*
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