19.1. Tension is a co-evolving dynamic

Apple is a company under constant tension. It is this tension that aligns it with big ecosystems that has helped it to nurture and grow. It is that very tension that provides the underpinning meaning that seeds any of its actions. The tension is coherence in alignment and completeness in action (Figure 19.1).

At Apple, it is seen at all levels (extracted from [COR 08b]):

• – objectives are not merely “objectives”; their apprehension leads to time-based vision, i.e. the end aim. And management installs tension, which is capaciting the vision of the aim. This is the power axis;
• – while management aims at stretching the alignment with the vision, it routinely works at monitoring the rapport between teams (people) and tasks (actions). However, people reach their accomplishment by consideration of the aims and the executive directions that are set for them. Then four interplays appear that signify the dynamic rapports between the four basic generalized notions. This is the lifeline axis;
• – people embody the vision through an explicit system that we call a code. The code is clothed with varied names in specialized fields. It can be the reference cooking book from a visionary chef, a business plan from a new entrepreneur or the guiding textbook for students. In the case of Apple it comes from adherence to the vision. Vision stirs people’s energy as an invisible manager. The resulting effect of putting the code into use is termed impact. This measures the potential effectiveness of the code. Together, these two secondary notions form the method axis. A suitable method – the particular way to work something out – can free man from tedious trial and error. An experiment without a method is at best silly and at worst evil. The genuine power of a method is to transcend natural man’s abilities. We have detailed Da Vinci’s codes – his working approach – as the most relevant role model that could be found;
• – the right ingredients to focus upon in order to realize the vision are called the lever. All actions are performed through a kind of chemistry that is not amenable to a mere code. The code plus the lever can stir and project what people inherently have.. Steve Jobs seeded and accrued that historical lever role and embodied it into the people’s minds, then the Apple University. That is his true legacy, which serves as a model reference for all. What ensues is the development of a reference (the meaning of a model result) that finds its true place – i.e. its significance – in the target social group. We call this “testimony” the legacy. This is the significance axis: the degree of meaningfulness of a given cultural pattern scheme to its authors or stakeholders. A scheme without meaning is useless and it is meaning that establishes entire societies (and firms, organizations, including the greater information and knowledge society).

These are four power lines that combine in the synthetic diagram as depicted in Figure 19.1.

19.2. Tension is a dynamic toward futures

The main challenge of any organization resides in providing the link between present and future. It is fundamentally a sustainability issue.

The four axes described are “futures axes” and yet they help in reinstalling a present to which the project can be identified to. They do this by relinquishing any projective action that would detach from a genuine interaction with the present. The transformation of the present is the real work that brings transformation and evolution.

The MagicEye diagram helps to signal whether the project takes up the challenge to be pointed in the right direction. If a future exists, it must (potentially) exist in the present otherwise it remains an idea. Because the linear continuity of time is merely an illusion that creates past–present–future alignments, it is our view that not anchoring on the present leads to depleted futures. Therefore, the MagicEye diagram exacerbates a relationship between structural time evolution and the notion of present. Does a future exist outside the mind of the one who thinks there is one? We believe not. Linear thinking and sequential models have long invaded our cultures and, unavoidably, inoculated our minds and impacted our inability to “see” things. But the decision-making process is about constantly resolving the tension between the present and its potentialities, even before looking at the consequences. The constant reinterpretation of possibilities transcends the linear models and calls for a new way of perceiving “future”. In a nutshell, Figure 19.1 unfolds the present, from the present to the future.

With Apple, the connecting-the-dots approach (a backcasting approach) reverses a possible future back into its generating process (the seeds of becoming). Apple is a constantly evolving firm, regenerating itself through the interplay of the eight factors of the MagicEye.

Thus, the dynamic reinterpretation of the present onto itself supports:

• – global and leveled foresight: addressing multiple levels and their correspondences from personal/local to global level. This is a “think local and act global” approach poster that crosses the micro and macro frontiers. The whole idea with Apple University is to ensure a coherent an actionable meso level in between;
• – organic dynamics: enhancing interrelationships and their dynamics. This installs a systemic behavior which enables evolution from present. The forming of interrelations induces a complex becoming that deeply serves the firm at first and impacts its ecosystem in the sense of complexity sciences. It elaborates adaptive behaviors.

Armed with such tooling, Apple can support a new art of change by smoothing out purely classical hierarchical management, as well as the traditional business process reengineering, total quality management, focus groups, etc. methods. It operates not on notional analysis phases, but on methods (and processes) of becoming. A company of becoming, how can it not be thinking the future? With it, the future starts now.

19.3. Walking the way

This book approaches Apple’s singularity in unique ways. We first observed the facts, including the amazing successes and first-rate failures that were revealing in that matter.

We then called on history and made stunning parallels with Da Vinci, the genius man of the Renaissance who, alone, made ample way for a flurry of innovations, which remained largely impossible to even think for his fellows at his time. Today, his way of thinking behind the scenes is still mostly uncovered as the scholarly and artistic focus is still positioned on the known artifacts. It contributed in clarifying a number of useful threads at method level.

At first, the parallels drawn with Steve Jobs were totally unexpected, until his capacity to churn out innovations in a multidimensional way came to our attention. Don't be deceived: the parallel goes deeper and further. It isn't much the result that counts but the way to do things.

This is a forbearing result for the competitive firms of recent years: firms change the way you think, with a rigorous method that they exercise systematically, and produce without a priori limits! Stay foolish, stay hungry…

It was only due to the power of C-K theory that inner traits of an Apple’s method could be excavated. We were fortunate to be able to use it in our own consultancy for years beforehand. For the intrinsic multidimensionality aspects, Trialectics was found to provide far reaching global pictures of the two concepts of competitiveness and innovation.

At this stage, an Apple way boasts signs that resort more to quantum universes than Newtonian spaces. They may deserve to be developed further as quantum laws slowly seem to take over our globalized ways of doing business, of living and of interrelating.

As we attempt to integrate the above, the image of a rainbow comes to mind, and it reminds us of the long-forgotten old rainbow Apple Computer logo, bearing the same symbolic meaning.