“Steve Jobs is a liar”.
This statement was true in the 1980’s when he spoke above the tablet that used your fingers as the stylus. Today the iPad in your hand tells us that he was telling the truth. This discussion about the truth is a powerful lesson about leadership and the leadership styles we use to run our companies.
Steve Job’s was well known for his outlandish claims. He lived in a ‘reality distortion field’. Hindsight tells us that his reality distortion was self fulfilling – his fantasy became our reality . He was the master of ‘applied imagination’ – a creative entrepreneur. (Source: “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson )
This calls into question what is ‘impossible’. The claims that Job’s made were impossible in their context but this begs a bigger question –
• Did the impossible become possible because one man had the vision to call it into being?
• If you have the vision and the courage can the impossible became a reality?
• Is impossible only impossible because no one has challenged it?
As you lead your company you have to consider the tension between the possible and the impossible (truth and falsehood).
The ‘possible’ brings mediocre success at best. The ‘impossible’ brings success beyond our wildest dreams.