Meet the new boss
I made a quick switch after President Biden dropped out. Let me know what you think.
I had something else planned for today -- in fact, we were going to write a Big Optimism newsletter.
But, in light of the news of President Biden's decision to abandon his reelection effort and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, I decided to revisit something else -- not about Biden per se, but about the entire idea of planning for succession.
It's about Steve Jobs, a brutal truth most people never confront, and a single sentence Jobs included in the letter he wrote when he resigned as CEO of Apple, 11 years ago next month. But it has its roots in the commencement address Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005.
Here's the key passage from his resignation letter. It runs just 17 words:
"I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple."
It's simple, matter-of-fact, and almost boring, despite how momentous the letter itself was. Read it in the context of what Jobs had said at Stanford, however, and it takes on incredible power.
These lines from that 2005 speech have stuck with me ever since I first heard them:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.
It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.
Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
By early 2011, Jobs understood that he was becoming "the old," and that it was happening ahead of his time. Turning 56, he was battling pancreatic cancer for the second time. He'd had to take medical leave for most of the year.
He knew what was coming, and he died just 42 days after stepping down at Apple.
Last year, Cook, Jobs's hand-picked successor, picked up a $750 million bonus for having served as Apple CEO for a decade. It's a lot of money, obviously.
Still, consider that not only did Jobs recruit Cook to Apple, but he also set up a succession plan that has now resulted in stable leadership for a full decade and a company that's worth almost 10 times more today than it was in 2011 ($377 billion then; $3.4 trillion today.)
Things often look inevitable in retrospect. But all you have to do is compare the seamless transition at Apple over the past decade to succession battles at other companies that wind up consuming everything.
Heck, Jobs was a veteran of multiple succession battles at Apple, for that matter, dating back at least to when he recruited John Sculley as CEO, only for Sculley to force Jobs out of the company.
Couple that history with the fact that Jobs had already had the experience -- he talked about it in the Stanford speech -- of being told that his cancer would likely kill him in a matter of months.
He defied those odds for several years afterward, but the experience guided him.
The brutal truth here is really twofold:
First, all of us will die someday: you, me, everyone we know and love.
But also, if you want the things that you build to live on, then you have to begin to let go ahead of time.
You have to spend time thinking far into the future, recruiting and growing the people you hope will take over.
You have to let go of the very human concern that succession planning is about finding a replacement and instead think of who might be able to lead in his or her own way, and to destinations you might never dream of.
Change is always exciting. But in the long run, it’s probably better if it’s at least a little bit boring.
7 other things …
Democrats quickly rallied around Vice President Kamala Harris as their likely presidential nominee Sunday after President Joe Biden‘s ground-shaking decision to bow out of the 2024 race. But the fast-moving political situation remained volatile just months before the November election. However, former President Barack Obama and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who are widely seen as having engineered Biden’s withdrawal, did not explicitly endorse Harris. (Stars and Stripes)
For 23 days, President Joe Biden insisted on pushing forward with his reelection bid in the face of calls from Democratic lawmakers and donors for him to step aside. And then, almost on a dime, things changed. Here’s what things looked like behind the scenes. (Politico)
On the other side: Donald Trump’s political team says they've been preparing to run against Vice President Kamala Harris for weeks, something they got one step closer to on Sunday after President Joe Biden said he is dropping out of the 2024 race. “We are pretty excited about the fact that he endorsed Kamala,” Richard Grenell, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany and Trump’s acting director of national intelligence, said. “As we know in California, she has never been vetted. … Kamala Harris is a product of this whole system. She’s very far left, unvetted and untested.” (NBC News)
Come make $100,000! It’s hard to hire police officers, especially in and around big cities, so departments are getting creative. (WSJ)
Add "coffee badging" to the list of post-pandemic workplace culture coinage to keep track of in 2024. It's when employees of companies with return-to-office (RTO) mandates go into office to "show face" for a few hours, then head back home to finish the work day. As a result, some companies that announced return-to-office mandates are now revising their policies to require a certain number of hours, too. (CTV)
If you can elbow your way onto one of Majorca’s sunspots this summer, you will witness two unstoppable forces. The first, as old as time, the waves of the Balearic Sea, methodically erasing the day’s lovingly crafted sandcastles. The second, a more modern phenomenon, the tsunami of tourism threatening to consume all in its path. Every inch of beach is taken. Finding a parking space is like striking gold. If you leave your sunbed for too long, your possessions are unceremoniously turfed to make space for the long queue of would-be usurpers. (BBC)
The 2024 Olympics begin this week,w ith opening ceremonies set for July 26 and quite a few events that will be happening before them. Here is a breakdown of the first day of Olympic events, including the start time for the first event in Paris. (USA Today)
Thanks for reading. Photo credit: Md Mahdi on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments.
Wonderful story today. Much needed. Some plan better than others.
Yes! To the point, and it is a matter of fact, the best way to control what one has made during their life is to provide a successor who hopefully continue on the path made.
Best done while one is still alive & kicking & able to guide.