Sequencing Apple's DNA

19A Company Under (Dynamic) Tension

Apple always strives to: (i) anticipate, (ii) align its operations and culture along with an anticipated idea and (iii) stick to the anticipated idea until it yields the (big) returns it always unmistakably expects.

Anticipation is evidently seen in targeting new strategic markets, but also in acquiring, then growing, the competencies needed in the more or less distant future. It is a multidimensional approach.

19.1. Tension is a co-evolving dynamic

Apple is a company under constant tension. It is this tension that aligns it with big ecosystems that has helped it to nurture and grow. It is that very tension that provides the underpinning meaning that seeds any of its actions. The tension is coherence in alignment and completeness in action (Figure 19.1).

Figure 19.1. The generalized MagicEye diagram as a cultural pattern scheme

At Apple, it is seen at all levels (extracted from [COR 08b]):

• – objectives are not merely “objectives”; their apprehension leads to time-based vision, i.e. the end aim. And management installs tension, which is capaciting the vision of the aim. This is the power axis;
• – while management aims at stretching the alignment with the vision, it routinely works at monitoring the rapport between teams (people) and tasks (actions). However, people reach their accomplishment by consideration of the aims and the executive directions ...