In an event at Duke University in April, Apple CEO Tim Cook took the opportunity to discuss leadership with the university’s Fuqua School of Business. He also discussed the importance of good collaboration among colleagues, the importance of hiring great executives that aren’t just in it for the glory, and more.
The comments on collaboration were especially interesting – here’s a direct quote by Cook (via Business Insider) sharing his ideas on collaboration during a question and answer segment:
What qualities do you look for in terms of what you think will produce effective collaboration?And what’s your role as CEO in fostering that kind of collaboration?
You look for people that are not political. People that are not bureaucrats. People that can privately celebrate the achievement, but not care if their name that is in the one in the lights. There are greater reasons to do things.
You look for wicked smart people. You look for people who appreciate different points of view. People who care enough that they have an idea at 11 at night and they want to call and talk to you about it. Because they’re so excited about it, they want to push the idea further. And that they believe that somebody can help them push the idea another step instead of them doing everything themselves.
I’ve never met anyone in my life, maybe they exist, that could do something so incredible by themselves in companies with global footprints. In our world, in Apple’s world, the reason Apple is special is we focus on hardware, software, and services. And the magic happens where those three come together.
And so, it’s unlikely that somebody that’s focused on one of those in and of itself can come up with magic and so you want people collaborating in such a way so you can produce these things that can’t be produced otherwise. And you want people to believe in that.
You can check out Cook’s comments for yourself in the below YouTube playlist, which includes 7 clips from Tim Cook’s presentation, posted online by Duke University. Sounds like some pretty sage advice!
