This webcast shows an interesting interview with Steve Jobs when he was with NeXT computer. He discusses quality, business and the experience of working with Dr. Juran at NeXT computer. The video is likely from around 1991.

America’s in a tough spot right now, I think. I think we have forgotten the basics. We were so prosperous for so long that we took so many things for granted. And we forgot how much work it took to build and sustain those basic things that were supporting out prosperity. Things like a great education system. Things like great industry.

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We are being out-planned, we are being out-strategized, we are being out-manufactured. It there is nothing that can’t be fixed but we are not going to fix it up here, we are going to fix it by getting back to the basics.

I agree with this thought, and while we have made some progress over the decades since this was recorded there is a long way to go (related: complacency about our contribution the USA has received from science and engineering excellence – when you were as rich as the USA was in the 1950s and 1960s more and more people felt they deserved to be favored with economic gifts without effort (forgetting the basics as Jobs mentioned) – Silicon Valley Shows Power of Global Science and Technology Workforce). After World War II the USA was able to coast on an economic bubble of extreme wealth compared to the rest of the world for several decades (and the economic success built during that period even still provides great advantages to the USA). That allowed wealthy living conditions even without very good management practices in our businesses.

The importance of customer focus is obvious at the companies Jobs led. It wasn’t a weak, mere claim of concern for the customer, it was a deep passionate drive to delight customers.

Very good word and note “if there is a mechanism for it.” A management system can be designed to encourage continual improvement by those doing the work. But if not, and most are not, still today, the continual improvement won’t happen. The “optimistic humanism” is directly “respect for people” principles I advocate in this blog. Which ties directly back to the first point – that the management system needs to have mechanisms for respect for people. Empty words about how we value people is of no use, and sadly the most common situation. What is beneficial is a management system that demonstrates how the organization maximizes the ability of people to contribute to continually improving the success of the organization.

People shouldn’t have to ask management permission to do something that needs to be approved. Authority should be vested in the people doing the work to improve their own processes , to teach them how to measure them, to understand them and improve them.

Related: Steve Jobs Discussing Customer Focus at NeXT – You’ve Got to Find What You Love (Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement address – Respect People by Creating a Climate for Joy in Work – Science, Engineering and the Future of the American Economy