Case Analysis: Apple’s Design Team
Study the case and answer the questions.
Discussion Questions
1. Is a self-managing organization a good idea? Why or why not?
2. Could Zappos have done anything to make the transition to the new
system smoother? If so, what?
Sources: Diana Ransom, “Tony Hsieh Is Leaving Zappos after 20 Years,” Inc.,
August 25, 2020; Aimee Groth, “Zappos Has Quietly Backed Away from Holacracy,”
Quartz at Work, January 29, 2020; Zack Guzman, “Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh on
Getting Rid of Managers: What I Wish I’d Done Differently,” CNBC (September 13,
2016), http://www.cnbc.com; Yuki Noguchi, “Zappos: A Workplace Where No One
and Everyone Is the Boss,” NPR (July 21, 2015), http://npr.org; Jennifer Reingold,
“How a Radical Shift Left Zappos Reeling,” Fortune (March 4, 2017),
http://fortune.com; Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfied, “No Managers Required:
How Zappos Ditched the Old Corporate Structure for Something New,” Fast
Company (January 6, 2014), https://www.fastcompany.com.
Case Study 2. Apple’s Design Team1
In a surprise notice issued late on Thursday, June 20, 2019, Apple announced
that its chief design officer, Jonathan “Jony” Ive, would be leaving the company
later in the year. Ive was the man behind the design team that created Apple’s
most iconic products—the iMac, the MacBook, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad,
and the Apple Watch. Working side by side with Apple’s founder, Steve Jobs,
Ive led what was arguably the most successful design team in the history of
business, and the inspiration for a whole new generation of consumer
electronics. It was not an exaggeration to say that the work of his design team
had rescued Apple from the edge of the abyss, and made it one of the most
highly valued companies in the world. And now Ive was moving on.
Apple’s Renaissance
Apple’s storied history is fairly well known. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
founded Apple Computer in 1976. After disrupting the industry and setting a
new course for personal computing, the company struggled, and Jobs and
Wozniak left the company in 1985. Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and put the
company on a different trajectory, increasing Apple’s emphasis on innovation
and design.
Jobs began searching for talent, and he wanted A+ players he could use to build
his design team. Up until that time, the company had partnered with firms
outside of Apple to design its products. But Jobs wanted to bring the work inhouse. Jobs and Ive had a remarkable first meeting; the two just clicked. “I can’t
really remember that happening really ever before,” Ive said. “It was the most
bizarre thing, where we were both perhaps a little—a little bit odd. We weren’t
used to clicking.”
The iMac was Jobs’s and Ive’s first big hit in 1998. Both men knew they were
redesigning not just Apple’s flagship computer, but the company itself. As
Steven Levy put it, the iMac “was the beginning of a succession of products that
changed the expectations not just of technology design but the role of design in
consumer products.”
Jobs and Ive had complementary styles and complementary strengths. “Ive
could translate futuristic concepts into physical objects with simplicity and
sophistication. . . . Jobs was the inspiration and the editor needed to bring these
ideas to life.” Ive was generally reserved, while Jobs was famously charismatic.
His reputation was “one of almost maniacal micro-management when it came
to creating a new product and of almost Barnum-like mastery of hoopla and
razzmatazz when it came to selling.”
But Jobs and Ive were alike in their design philosophies: both put beauty before
everything else. As Ive described it, “We think alike about how products should
be made to look pure and seamless.” For both, less was more. “In so many
ways, we’re trying to get the object out of the way,” Ive said. Both Jobs and Ive
were equally passionate about big ideas and small details. They didn’t just care
about how a product looked from the outside; they were focused on the
complete picture, inside and out.
Their offices were right next to each other, and they often ate lunch and took
walks together, discussing new projects and plans. Ive recalled, “Steve used to
say to me—and he used to say this a lot—‘Hey, Jony, here’s a dopey idea.’ And
sometimes they were: really dopey. Sometimes they were truly dreadful. But
sometimes they took the air from the room, and they left us both completely
silent. Bold, crazy, magnificent ideas. Or quiet, simple ones which, in their
subtlety, their detail, they were utterly profound.” Matt Rogers, who developed
software for the iPhone and iPad between 2007 and 2010, said, “Most of the
greatest debates at Apple happened between those two as they walked
together.”
The Design Team
Ive’s 20-person design team was the epicenter of Apple’s great run of iconic
products. An eclectic group, the team members included Eugene Whang, who
moonlighted as a DJ; Julian Hönig, who previously had designed Lamborghinis;
Jody Akana, who specialized in color; and Bart André, who had more design
patents than any other Apple employee.
Although the group expanded somewhat over the years, it remained very loyal.
In almost two decades, only two designers had ever left the studio. Given that
special mix of talent, losing an individual designer was a big loss. Three
recruiters were specifically assigned to identify and recruit new designers;
they were uber-selective, onboarding only about one new member per year.
As a rule, the design team worked apart from the rest of the company: it was
fairly insular from others, even secretive. Team members were not allowed to
discuss their work with friends, but shared virtually everything with each
other. Although each designer had a specialty, and each project had a team
leader, they cross-pollinated continuously, and everyone contributed to one
another’s work, sharing the credit. The team typically worked long 12-hour
days, obsessing over elements of design—the shape of curves, the angle of
displays, even the color palette of package materials. The team described itself
as a family, socialized together after work, and created a “work hard, play
hard” culture that continued for years.
Ive described his role as lying between two extremes of design leadership: he
was not the source of all creativity, nor did he merely assess the proposals of
colleagues. The big ideas were often his, and he had an opinion about every
detail. Team meetings were held two or three times a week, and Ive
encouraged candor. “We put the product ahead of anything else,” he said.
Reflecting Ive’s style, the design team members worked quietly and brilliantly,
and rarely gained public recognition. By all accounts, they liked it that way.
They liked the creative work, not the hype. As designer Richard Howarth
described it, “It’s not like the weight of the world’s on our shoulders. Jony set it
up so that it’s a little—it’s freer than you might imagine.”
However, the design team enjoyed a level of influence at Apple unimaginable
at other firms. At most tech companies, engineering dictates product
development. At Apple, it was the other way around. “Ive often gave concepts
to Apple’s engineering department, telling them to make the product design
possible.” Designers reigned supreme.
Ive also changed the process by which design was created. As Brunner put it,
design had been “a vertical stripe in the [value] chain of events” in a product’s
creation. But at Apple, Ive shaped it to become “a long horizontal stripe, where
design is part of every conversation.”
The team obsessed over the designs, understanding the importance of iteration.
“Everything we make I could describe as being partially wrong, because it’s not
perfect. . . . We get to do it again. That’s one of the things Steve and I used to talk
about: ‘Isn’t this fantastic? Everything we aren’t happy about, with this, we can
try and fix.’”
The End of an Era
Steve Jobs died in October 2011, succumbing to a rare form of pancreatic
cancer. Ive was by his side when he passed away. Ive remained the creative
soul of Apple, and in the absence of Jobs, he had more responsibility. Ive’s role
expanded “from strictly physical industrial design to digital user interface as
well.” In other words, he was in charge of both hardware and software design.
He had a much bigger team reporting to him, and his impact was immense.
But something had changed within Apple, and within Ive himself. The pace of
work, and the cadence within the design studio, slowed. Ive acknowledged the
change, too. To regain momentum, Ive began pushing to make a watch,
intrigued by miniaturization of the iPhone’s powerful technology. “He met with
the team almost daily and immersed in detail, helping dream up the distinctive,
hexagonal grid of apps that morphed as people scrolled.”
After the Apple Watch launched in 2015, Ive met with his team. He “thanked
them for their work, and said 2014 had been one of his most challenging years
at Apple. In an interview with The New Yorker, Ive confessed to being “deeply
tired.” The staff beneath him had ballooned to hundreds of people. He wanted
“time and space to think.”
In the summer of 2015, Tim Cook, Apple’s new CEO, promoted Ive to chief
design officer, in recognition of his expanded design responsibilities, including
hardware, human interface, packaging, retail stores, and the company’s new
spaceship-inspired campus in Cupertino, California. Day-to-day responsibilities
were assumed by two veterans from Ive’s team.
Apple said little publicly about the change. But internally, it proved disruptive.
As part of the deal, Cook agreed that Ive would be less present at the company.
He traveled to headquarters only a day or two per week, and he often set up
meetings closer to his homes. People noticed. “The team craved being around
him,” said a person close to Apple leadership. “He’s engaging. [His] being
around less was disappointing.” Indeed, designers viewed approval from their
new leaders as merely tentative; they had looked forward to Ive’s promised
monthly “design weeks,” but Ive rarely showed up.
When the company was preparing for the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, the
designers gathered in a San Francisco penthouse chosen specifically for its
proximity to Ive’s home, so that they could demonstrate planned features of the
new iPhone to Ive. For nearly three hours, the team waited for Ive to show up.
After he finally arrived, he listened to the presentations, but left without
answering their key questions. The team was frustrated. “Many of us were
thinking: How did it come to this?” said a person at the meeting. “There was a
sense that Jony was gone but reluctant to hand over the reins.”
For his part, Tim Cook worked to keep Ive engaged and committed to the
organization, in part with a pay package that far exceeded that of other top
Apple executives—a point of friction for others on the executive team. And
cracks started to show in his design team as well. Several members left over
the next few years. Their departures heralded a new era.
The Announcement
On June 20, 2019, Ive gathered his design team in their new headquarters at
Apple Park. He explained that he was leaving the company, and answered their
questions. Just like old times, the gathering felt like family, and it was a fitting
way for the design chief to say goodbye.
Discussion Questions
1. What made Apple’s design team so unique? How did the members
work together? What made it so successful
2. What happened to the team? How could Apple have prevented its
decay?
3. Now that there is a new team, what should Apple do to recreate the
magic?
Source: Adapted from S. A. Snell, Apple’s Design Guru: Jony Ive, UVA-S-0320
(Charlottesville, VA: Darden Business Publishing, 2019).
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