My Irreplaceable You

When told that he was indispensable, the illustrious general and eventual president of France Charles De Gaulle said, "The graveyards are full of indispensable men."

Every business captain needs to post that quotation on the wall in front of his or her desk as a reminder that great leaders must be great delegators. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, is as indispensable as corporate heads can possibly be, but adverse health has forced him, as it did De Gaulle, to look at his mortality and relinquish to others tasks that threaten to sap the energy he needs to restore his health.

It's a difficult challenge for Jobs, his delegatees, his devoted fans - and investors, who turned bearish after Jobs farmed out the State of Apple keynote presentation at Macworld 2009 to Senior Worldwide Product Marketing VP Philip Schiller. By way of comparison (invidious or otherwise), here's Jobs giving the 2008 keynote, boiled down to 90 seconds. Do you think it raises or lowers his IQ (Irreplaceability Quotient)?

Apple's CEO, Timothy D. Cook, reassured analysts: “There is extraordinary breadth and depth and tenure among the Apple executive team, and they lead 35,000 employees that I would call wicked smart,” Cook was quoted in the New York Times. “We believe we were put on the face of the earth to make great products, and that is not changing.” It's significant that Apple rebounded forcefully from the Jobs health-jolt with a $1.61 billion profit for the fourth quarter of '08.

Jobs is one of many famous historical and contemporary figures forced to confront the realization that if your company or nation are going to live after you, you will have to find a way to turn some and eventually all of your authority over to heirs and successors. That is the theme of an article by Steve Lohr in the New York Times. Lohr's conclusion? "The notion of the irreplaceable individual is a myth." He mentions such business leaders as Wal-Mart's Sam Walton and Microsoft's Bill Gates as leaders who retired from active management at no great harm to their firms' productivity or profitability.

Among the earliest and most celebrated instances of delegation can be found in The Book of Exodus (chapter 18). One of the first things Moses did after leading his people out of Egypt was confer on others responsibility for adjudicating disputes. His father-in-law Jethro counseled that justice could not be served if Moses occupied himself settling every petty quarrel in his vast camp of contentious Israelites. "Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee," said Jethro (in the King James version). "For this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone."

Art thou listening, Mr. Jobs?

Moses was humble enough to take the advice, reserving for himself the capital issues. Though it still took forty years to reach the Promised Land, it's arguable that the wanderers would not have made it at all had their patriarch sapped his vitality on the small stuff.

In case you want to read the story in full, Mr. Jobs, there are a number of excellent Bible apps available in your store for download on your iPhone.

RC