Book Excerpt March 30, 2010, 3:38PM EST

Book Excerpt: Common Purpose

In an edited excerpt from his new book, Common Purpose: How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary, Joel Kurtzman writes about how Apple's culture has always reflected the personality of founder Steve Jobs

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From a leadership perspective, organizations have emotional lives. Some organizations are upbeat, and others are down.

I recall, for example, my first visit to Apple Computer. In the mid-1980s, not long after the launch of the first Mac, I was there to discuss how to make the company truly global, which meant introducing the Mac into developing countries around the world where power was intermittent, phone lines scarce, and money even scarcer. The idea I discussed with the company's senior leaders was to donate machines and network applications to developing countries so that the Mac architecture would form the information technology infrastructure in poor countries where most of the world's people live. Without going into the merits of my idea (it could have used a little more work!), suffice it to say that Apple embraced the idea and we arranged partnerships with some non-governmental organizations from around the world.

Back then, a number of things impressed me about Apple. First, they made decisions quickly. The fellow I was dealing with liked the idea and committed the company to the initiative on the spot. That told me that management was open, people had the power to decide, and leaders were everywhere throughout the firm. And when he made his decision, he didn't hem and haw. He embraced it. He was upbeat about it and decidedly positive.

Second, I was impressed by the energy of the place. People were excited about their work, about their jobs. They thought of themselves as revolutionaries, and they had posters and sayings in the offices and cubicles to that effect. They really believed computers would make the world better and that their computers would do it best. They were excited, not fearful, of the challenges ahead.

Third, I was impressed with all the bicycles I saw inside the offices. When people rode their bikes to work, they brought them the Apple offices and kept them in their cubicles. This told me that the culture was both youthful and informal. It also told me that people had interests—that they believed in fitness and exercise and they had a positive view of life. It was a joy to spend time in those offices.

Fourth, I was impressed by the creativity of the place. Everywhere I went, everyone I talked to was filled with great ideas. It was as if Steve Jobs's creativity and vision had permeated every molecule in the air and people were affected by it and emulated it. There was a lot of positive competition to think different, as one of its ad slogans said. And they embraced it.

And, finally, I was impressed with how much fun people were having. One fellow told me, for example, that he played volleyball every day at work. Apple's management had had sand brought in and dumped somewhere on the campus and turned the area into volleyball courts. He said they did it because that's the type of volleyball the people at Apple liked. Then he said to me he had done the same thing at his own house—replaced some of his lawn with sand—so he could have friends over from work to play beach volleyball.

In those days, Apple was a place for upbeat, creative leaders who were a touch fanatical about things—just like the company's cofounder, Steven Jobs. And what this showed me was the strength of Apple's culture and the power of an upbeat culture. (A few years later, when I met Jobs, I saw how much of Apple's culture was the result of his personality: smart, driven, upbeat, positive, creative, and a risk taker.)

To [Richard] Boyatzis, one important objective of leadership is to create in people not only confidence in their ability to act on their own, but to help them achieve what he calls "cognitive agility." In other words, said Boyatzis, it's not enough to give people their jobs and let them own them. You have to create a positive culture so they can think for themselves. If, for example, one of Simon Cooper's desk agents at a Ritz-Carlton property is unable to figure out how to help an agitated guest calm down, the experience for the guest and the people surrounding that guest will be diminished. Creating the right climate so individuals can develop cognitive agility when faced with a problem is a vital and often ignored aspect of leadership.

Years of working within a fear-based organization, where all rival companies are viewed as foes that must be utterly and totally defeated, can shut people down and even limit their ability to solve problems. It's not that these people aren't smart. It's that they are so bogged down by fear and second-guessing—and whatever negative emotions are also tolerated inside their organizations—that they are too fearful to think, try new things, and be innovative and creative.

Joel Kurtzman is a senior fellow with the Milken Institute, publisher of the Milken Institute Review, and author of the new book Common Purpose: How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary (Jossey-Bass).