Apple, Inc., the California-based designer, developer and
retailer of the absolute best computers and personal electronic devices
on the market (I'm not biased), has long been renowned for it's exceptional
design team. Apple's innovatively designed products have been the
company's competitive advantage for many years, and new products, when
released, are often trailblazers in their respective markets.
So it's logical that we might assume that at least part of Apple's
secret is some unique ability to find the best designers in the industry, or
a top-secret design school on the Apple campus that teaches new Apple
designers how to design truly exceptional products.
Not the case, according to a
new Fast Company article. The magazine recently interviewed
Mark Kawano, an Apple senior designer for seven years before leaving to found
his own company. In the article, Kawano opened up about working at
Apple, and helped to dispel a few myths about the company--including the myth
that "Apple has the best designers".
Kawano says:
“I think the biggest misconception is this belief that the reason
Apple products turn out to be designed better. . . is that they have the best
design team in the world, or the best process in the world. It’s not
this thing where you get some special wings or superpowers when you enter
Cupertino...It’s that you now have an organization where you can spend your
time designing products, instead of having to fight for your seat at the
table, or get frustrated when the better design is passed over by an
engineering manager who just wants to optimize for bug fixing. All of those
things are what other designers at other companies have to spend a majority
of their time doing. At Apple, it’s kind of expected that experience is
really important.”
There's certainly more to Apple's success than just this, but it's
striking that the critical differentiator, as experienced by a senior
designer, is that designers at Apple aren't bogged down with bureaucratic
nonsense or political maneuvering. We all have an intuitive sense that
bureaucracy causes a drop in productivity, but there's this sense that it's a
necessary evil--because bureacracy is what's required to ensure we're doing
the right things in the right way. Kawano's story says the exact
opposite: the absence of bureaucracy is the method that Apple uses to ensure
they're doing the right things in the right way.
I hope you caught that, because it's big.
