With the news of Steve Jobs

Wed 21 Sep, 2011 11:05

Nathan Brumby Chief Operating Officer at ansarada

Just recently there has been an interesting story released concerning Steve Jobs and his attention to detail.

In summary it goes like this:

"So.....we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away. I've already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow" said Steve. "I've been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I'm not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn't have the right yellow gradient. It's just wrong and I'm going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?"

It reminded me of a very famous Sufi story related by Idries Shah in his book "The Way of the Sufi."

The story goes that each year a great teacher would visit a particular farm. Each day of his stay he would head out and wander the fields. At the end of each visit he would hand to the farmer a bag of seeds and each year those particular seeds would produce the best crop.

For the farmer and the surrounding community there was growing intrigue as to what made these seeds so special? Why did they grow better and what was the trick the teacher was not disclosing?

After a number of years of this the farmer finally asked the teacher the secret of the bag of seeds?

The teacher calmly related that each year when he visited the farm he would walk the fields and only pick a seed from the best trees he saw. At the end of his trip it was those seeds that he handed over in the bag.

As with all Sufi teaching stories there are many elements to this.

The more obvious are:

1. Seek perfection but be patient in the process
2. Always look for and develop that which is good and be discerning with that which is not
3. Sometimes the answer to a complex question is a simple answer that invariably comes from knowledge

In my role as COO at ansarada I see our team challenging and pushing the boundaries of 'the best' every day, and as a result we develop our product and service to the highest level of detail.

Are you willing to do what it takes to settle for nothing but perfection?