TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Apple is studying its processes so it can pass them down to new employees. Horace Dedieu writes:

According to the article in Fortune and some additional details from another source, Joel Podolny has been building an understanding of how Apple is run. He’s then been asked to codify this understanding into a curriculum that can be taught to Apple employees.

The idea that Apple is trying to capture its institutional processes and knowledge is very compelling. Few companies have self-knowledge. Fewer still try to codify it and teach it to new generations of leaders (Disney, McDonalds and Toyota have in-house training programs but they are mostly aimed at new hires).

Hopefully they’re trying to capture how Apple approaches things, rather than “this is what we do” absolutes. There’s a fine line between attempting to pass down the approach which made them successful, and creating an orthodoxy. Orthodoxies—”this is how we do things here”—stifle creativity and ultimately weaken companies. They must be careful to stay on the right side of that line.