Rational Marketing

To celebrate the release of Avatar on DVD we thought we would share some similarities offered by BNET of two innovative leaders by looking at traits which produce incredible innovation. In fact, following any of these styles could get you fired — unless you have the inspiration genius that can deliver results like Cameron and Jobs.

Bonding Through Innovation

Cameron. “Breaking new ground is Cameron’s raison d’être — nothing interests this man unless it’s hard to do,” wrote Rebecca Keegan on HBR.org. “But innovation has also become a way of bonding his teams… For Cameron, a sense of exploration isn’t just personally enriching, it’s a crucial tool for motivating and uniting his teams.”

Jobs. When Jobs created the original Macintosh team in the early 1980s, he moved the group to a remote building on the Apple campus, raised a pirate flag above the roof, and moved in a popcorn machine to give his people a sense of esprit de corps. Today, management experts prefer you unite your groups rather than pitting them against each other, but they also love the idea of inspiring your team with sense of purpose they can rally around.

More Perfection, Please

Cameron. On Avatar, Keegan reports, “Hours were spent on the smallest details, like getting alien sap to drip precisely right…. It’s hard to argue with Cameron’s nitpicky style, however, when audiences thrill to immerse themselves in the richly detailed worlds he creates.”

Jobs: Just weeks before launch of the original iPhone, Apple decided to replace the plastic touch screen with optical-quality glass. The change not only delayed the introduction, but caused its screen vendor, Balda, to reconfigure parts of its assembly line “causing a material impact on financials,” according to AppleInsider. For Jobs, however, the aesthetic of the product would have been ruined by an inferior screen.

Inspiration Through Fear

Again, not a great trait you’d teach to MBAs, but both Cameron and Jobs are stern taskmasters who demand the most of their employees, and occasionally cross the line to get it.

Cameron. “Many Cameron alumni will share a story from their first film with him, a day they were sure they were going to be fired, almost hoped for it. But Cameron rarely fires people. ‘Firing is too merciful,’ he says. Instead he tests their endurance for long hours, hard tasks, and harsh criticism. Survivors tend to surprise themselves by turning in the best work of their careers, and signing on for Cameron’s next project.”

Jobs. “”It was probably the best work I ever did,” former Apple designer Corsdell Ratzlaff told Inside Steve’s Brain author Leander Kahaney. “It was exhilratating. It was exciting. Sometimes it was difficult, but he had the ability to pull the best out of people.”

If these men, both brilliant in their own fields, managed by the book, they may not have been nearly as successful. What they share is passion for the work, and their management styles both demand and instill passion in the people that work around them.

How can we help you be passionate and innovative with your marketing?