Motives

February 21st, 2010Blog0 comments

I just read Inside Steve’s Brain, a Steve Jobs biography with a focus on his managerial style. There are a lot of great nuggets in this book, but one thing that really struck me was this:

“The older I get, the more I’m convinced that motives make so much difference,” Jobs said. “HP’s primary goal was to make great products. And our primary goal here is to make the world’s best PCs — not to be the biggest or the richest.”

Jobs said Apple has a second goal, which is to make a profit — both to make money but to also keep making products.

“For a time,” Jobs said, “those goals got flipped at Apple, and that subtle change made all the difference. When I got back, we had to make it a product company again.”

I think motives are extremely important. If we’re clear about why we’re doing something, it allows us to focus and define our goals properly. It’s impossible to plan a strategy without knowing what our endgame is.

This is really important in any creative endeavor — if the #1 motive isn’t to make a great product, then there’s going to be a problem.

Now, the motive of “making a profit” as Jobs says, is a perfectly legitimate secondary goal for an artist. The stereotype of the struggling artist making better art is bullshit. An artist that is fed, stable, and able to care for his/her kids — in essence, has achieved well-being according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — is in a prime position to have the time, energy, and space to create. This is why artists need either patrons, grants, or commercial success in order to create their art.

Walt Disney said it best: