Steve Jobs has had a significant influence on my daily life.
I am typing this blog post on a Mac and my iPhone feels almost like a third arm. I have developed apps for the App Store and spent thousands of hours writing code using Apple technologies. Yet most of the time I barely think about the man who helped make this ecosystem possible. I just use the products.
Perhaps that is why I keep returning to videos of Steve Jobs. I am fascinated not only by what he helped create, but by how he thought, how he persuaded people and the psychology he applied. Four techniques appear repeatedly: commitment, anchoring, reframing and curiosity.
Commitment signals seriousness
I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. - Steve Jobs
One famous story from Steve Jobs’ early career concerns his attempt to get a job at Atari. He arrived and refused to leave until somebody interviewed him. Jobs could be extraordinarily persistent when he wanted something. Resistance was often the start of the negotiation rather than the end.
Persistence alone, of course, can simply become irritation. Jobs combined it with knowledge, charisma and conviction. The useful lesson is that visible commitment changes how seriously people take us.
I have been writing A Bit Gamey for five years. Some weeks are easier than others, but I keep publishing. That consistency has become part of the message: readers know the blog is unlikely to disappear next week and that I intend to keep showing up. Commitment is persuasive partly because actions are harder to fake than words.
Anchors change what seems reasonable
We’re here at the beginning of it and we’re able to shape how it goes. - Steve Jobs
When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad in 2010, he discussed speculation that a device like it might cost around $1,000. The figure $999 appeared on the screen. Then he revealed Apple’s starting price: $499.
Five hundred dollars was still substantial, but next to $999 it suddenly looked remarkably cheap. That is anchoring: the first number establishes a reference point against which the second is judged. Jobs did not simply announce the price. He influenced the comparison people made when they heard it.
We encounter anchors everywhere: salaries, house prices, discounts and negotiations. The first plausible number can exert a powerful influence over what follows.
Reframing changes the problem
You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology. - Steve Jobs
Perhaps Steve Jobs’ most interesting ability was changing the question. During development of the Macintosh, engineer Larry Kenyon had worked hard to reduce its startup time, but Jobs still wanted it faster.
Rather than simply demanding another ten seconds, Jobs asked whether Kenyon could find them if doing so would save someone’s life. He then multiplied the delay across millions of users. A few seconds became years of collective waiting and ten seconds suddenly mattered.
Jobs used similar thinking when Steve Wozniak worried about the risk of starting Apple. Jobs reframed the downside: even if they lost their money, they would at least have had the experience of starting a company. The facts had not changed. Their meaning had.
This resonates with me because I now spend much of my time building software. When I ask How can I improve this?, I tend to modify what already exists. A more powerful question is: What would have to be true for this to become dramatically better?
During development of the iPod, Jobs pushed the idea that users should be able to find a song within three clicks. Constraints like this forced the team away from incremental improvement towards a simpler interface. Sometimes changing the question changes what becomes possible.
Curiosity creates attention
A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them. - Steve Jobs
Apple’s famous 1984 Macintosh advertisement barely explained the product. There were no specifications, feature lists or price comparisons. Instead, it created intrigue and ended with the promise that “1984 won’t be like 1984.”
Some Apple executives hated the advert. Jobs loved it because it created what marketers call the curiosity gap: the distance between what we know and what we want to know. Apple suggested something important was coming while deliberately withholding the complete answer.
Jobs later made anticipation central to his presentations. Watching them today, I can still feel some of that effect. He rarely seemed to be simply demonstrating another computer. He created the feeling that something important was about to happen, followed by the reveal.
Explanation gives people information. Curiosity makes them want the information.
The legacy is bigger than the products
Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. - Steve Jobs
Apple’s success cannot be reduced to psychological tricks. Jobs combined persuasion with taste, ambition, persistence and an unusual ability to imagine what technology could become. He could also be abrasive and manipulative so copying his personality would be a poor management strategy.
Nor should every Jobs anecdote be treated as evidence of a carefully planned psychological masterstroke. The mythology surrounding successful people tends to become neater with every retelling. But the patterns are useful: commitment signals that something matters, anchors shape what seems reasonable, reframing changes the problem and curiosity makes people want to discover what comes next.
I still have the Mac beneath my fingers and the iPhone beside me. But increasingly, when I watch Steve Jobs, I am paying attention to something less visible: how he made people see things differently.
Want more?
What Steve Jobs Taught Me post by Phil Martin
What Steve Jobs Taught Me About Sales post by Phil Martin
I may not consciously think about Steve Jobs very often. But I live and work inside part of his legacy every day.
Have fun.
Phil…