Posted on August 18, 2009 // 0 Comments

I’ve just returned from a few days holiday in Lisbon.

On the way out, I picked up a couple of books at the airport which could not have been more different, yet both offered a unique insight into the world of Employee Engagement.

The first book was Cityboy. Cityboy is a somewhat fictitious account of Steve Jones, a merchant banker from the Square Mile in the City of London. Although the book is fictitious, I’m confident it’s grounded in truth, and is representative of many bankers in New York, Shanghai, Hong Kong or just about any other major financial hub.

The other book was Inside Steve’s Brain – which looks at the inner thinking and psychology of Apple’s Founder and CEO, Steve Jobs.

The two books were page turners, and I certainly recommend both of them. They also reveal two different issues with employee engagement.

In Cityboy, which is fundamentally a book about greed, short-term thinking and self-interest, the writer gives us a glimpse into the world of the financial industry.

It’s a world I recognize well, having worked on many software projects inside City banks, and being personally based in the Square Mile for a number of years. I believe the City is governed by a different set of rules to many other commercial enterprises, and the usual employee engagement drivers sadly work less well there.

On returning from Lisbon, I watched a few YouTube interviews with the writer of Cityboy, Geraint Anderson, who suggests the City is nothing short of a wild-west casino, with a get-rich quick mentality focusing on short-term thinking and next year’s bonus. From my experience of the City, I’d tend to agree with him!

Geraint, who himself was a former highly-paid city stock analyst (and the inspiration behind the character of Steve Jones), freely admits he was guilty of short-termism, greed and suggests that “he spent most of his money on cocaine and strippers”. He goes on to explain that he  ”wasted the rest!”

Although City boys certainly put in long hours, work hard, and are driven, do they really believe in what they are doing? Are they proud of their work in the way Apple’s employees are? Or are they just chasing a quick reward – and leaving a trail of destruction?

A word on that in a moment.

In the second book I read, ‘Inside Steve’s Head’, you get a glimpse into the mind of the entrepreneur, Steve Jobs. You start to understand why Apple is the extraordinary business it is. The book shows Job’s exhaustive focus on the need to thrill, wow, delight and dazzle his customers.

When Jobs talks about designing a new interface, he tells how he wanted to make the buttons look so good, that customers would want to lick them. Although perhaps an odd ‘turn of phrase’ by Jobs, I doubt city boy sets such improbable standards for his customers.

Steve Jobs lives for his customers. He knows that without continually delighting his customers, Apple is nothing.

He also knows, that without a strong passionate team of employees, he will achieve nothing too.

Apple is clearly a place people where want to work, where they feel part of something bigger, and are engaged, not because of money, but because of their emotional connection to their work and the way they feel about the people they share their time with.

Apple (in its second generation since Jobs returned as CEO) is arguably one of the fastest growing companies in the digital space, delivering revolutionary products such as the iphone, imac and ipod.

Strong year on year revenue and profit growth at Apple is testimony to its products and people. Apple is a solid company, and whether or not it has a wobble through these difficult economic times, it is still creating products that people love and want, and is a company that employees love working for.

Contrast that with the banks, whose reckless pursuit of short-term goals and a fast buck has brought an almost ruinous near collapse of the banking system. Many of these banks have only survived because they have been bailed out by governments.

Without doubt, the recent sub-prime, mortgage backed securities crisis is a result of bankers short-term thinking, and city boys like Steve Jones focusing more on their next year’s bonus, than on building a lasting profitable company.

For me, the values which underpin the two different Steve’s in these two books are poles apart.

In the book about Steve Jobs, I see a leader who passionately inspires every employee to achieve more, I see a man with great vision, who builds teams of engaged people, who allows Apple to be the profitable worldwide success that it is today.

In Steve Jones of Cityboy, I see greed and excess, self-indulgence, and chasing short-term monetary goals, at the expense of building long-term value.

What has always fascinated me about the world of high-finance, and specifically equities, is that the price of a share is a reflection of its current and future earnings.

For Steve Jones in Cityboy, Apple would simply be a share price which flicks up on his Bloomberg or Reuters screen, which he would look to make money on.

But Apple’s Steve Jobs, knows only too well that the success of his company (and hence his profits and share price) comes from passionate customers who want to buy from him.

Jobs also knows only too well that without a team of engaged employees (who share a common vision, a common belief and passion, and who feel part of something special), he will never be able to develop those wonderful, creative products for his customers.

Where City boy Steve Jones has built his career on greed, short-termism and focusing on next year’s bonus – Steve Jobs has built his entire company by focusing on his customer, delivering excellence, and building a team of people who are passionately engaged at work.

In a nutshell, these two different books explain the ongoing success of Apple and the recent failure of the banks.

At the heart of both successes and failures are people.

As I’ve said many times, the profit is in the people, but as we’ve seen recently with banks, so are the losses! It is the job of leaders to create teams who not only believe in their work, but are focused on their customers, and are building something for the long-term… not just chasing a quick short term high.

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