Management lessons from Apple

The latest news coming from Apple Computers indicates that Steve Jobs may take medical leave from his job as the CEO of Apple Computers. The news caused Apple stock price to fall by 7.3 percent.

Steve Jobs is the brain of Apple Computers and it seems that all Apple’s creativity is centered on him.

As a manager in a small company, I see the problems that we face when our CEO is away, most of our decision process based on his vision, and when he is not around we struggle with our day to day operations. What to do to solve this problem?

We have to think about the danger of having the company revolve around one person and I don’t mean only the CEO, but any employee of the company. In certain companies, some employees are giving so much responsibilities that the company can not survive if they leave the company.

In my current position, I am trying, albeit its bit hard, to limit the responsibilities of each employee to certain areas but at the same time have every employee understand the business process of the company, so if a particular employee leave the job, the company will not suffer.

I am not trying to compare my small company with Apple Computers, I am sure Steve Jobs vision is behind Apple success, but the lesson is: the company must survive even if the CEO or the founder of the company leaves.