Corporate Plasticity: How to Change, Adapt, and Excel

Purpose

Apple’s Steve Jobs gave the finest example for defining the purpose of a company. At the unveiling of the first generation iPad on January 27, 2010, Jobs said, “We’ve always tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, to be able to get the best of both, to make extremely advanced products from a technology point of view, but also have them be intuitive, easy to use, fun to use, so that they really fit the users—the users don’t have to come to them, they come to the user.”

This message not only works internally for Apple’s employees. It also works externally with Apple’s customers and makes them queue up in front of Apple stores every time the firm launches a new product. These customers are so convinced by Apple living ...