史蒂夫•乔布斯去世前一天，我曾向一位知名管理顾问请教，借鉴苹果（Apple）的成功经验到底难在哪里。毕竟，这家公司似乎完全颠覆了所有公认的管理智慧。

    倾听消费者的心声？苹果可没有这么做。它推出的产品和服务，连消费者自己都不知道是否是他们想要的。

    成为消费者的头号拥护者？苹果公司的每一款产品都采用了“过时的”内置设计，如果我的电源线丢了，另换一根就得向他们支付80美元。在我看来，这可算不上客户至上。这家公司离经叛道，但却取得了令人咋舌的成功。

    秘密何在？

    这位顾问很聪明地用一个更宽泛的答案来回答了我的问题。他说：“史蒂夫•乔布斯和杰克•韦尔奇给普通公司和商业人士带来的伤害远远超过其他任何人。”这两位都取得了彪炳史册的成功，使许多人掉入了一个陷阱，认为既然他们能够取得如此巨大的成就，别人也能做到。

    于是，有人在制定的商业计划要求自己像具备乔布斯一样的执行能力——比如提前多年预测消到费者的喜好；在各方面推行超群的审美观，同时又能广受外界欢迎；不留情面地进行谈判；毫不怜悯地惩罚行事不力的员工，同时又能激励下属创造出伟大的产品；而且要具有业内无可比拟的广阔视野。一旦他们无法做到这些——其实根本也无人能够做到——他们的公司就会陷入困境，甚至面临倒闭。

    如果说眼下乔布斯热还没达到顶点，很快就会有铺天盖地的文章，大肆宣扬他的职业生涯所带来的管理与领导力经验。当然，这些经验确实存在，而且，我也相信它们着实重要。但这些经验都属于组织的基本要素、公司结构、竞争力和激励措施等，而不是那些难以言说的个人品质。

    现在，我们要搞清楚一点，乔布斯现象的某些方面是我们无法复制的。我们不可能成为下一个乔布斯。世上只能有一位史蒂夫•乔布斯。他是强制力、个性和经历独一无二的结合体。我问，乔布斯是否也像亚历山大大帝一样，只是绝无仅有的特殊现象，根本无法复制，顾问表示赞同。

    全球商业人士都将面临一个挑战：既要从史蒂夫•乔布斯身上获得灵感，又要避免自欺欺人地认为自己能够复制乔布斯的成功。要做到这一点，首先要切记，史蒂夫•乔布斯从来不屑于模仿任何人。

    译者：阿龙/汪皓

    The day before Steve Jobs died, I asked a well-known management consultant about the difficulty of drawing lessons from Apple's success. After all, the company seems to ignore accepted management wisdom.

    Listen to your customers? Apple doesn't. It gives customers products and services they didn't even know they wanted.

    Be the customer's biggest advocate? Every Apple (AAPL) product has obsolescence built in, and if I lose my laptop's power cord, they charge me $80 for a new one. Not what I'd call customer-friendly. This company seems to break basic rules, yet it's staggeringly successful.

    What gives?

    The consultant wisely answered a larger question than I had asked. "Steve Jobs and Jack Welch have done more damage to ordinary businesses and business people than anyone else," he said. Their historic success led many people into the trap of believing that, because these guys achieved what they did, others can do the same.

    So people came up with business plans that required them to do what Jobs did -- to sense what customers would love years in advance, to infuse everything about the business with an aesthetic that was sublime yet broadly appealing, to negotiate with brutal intensity, to punish bad work mercilessly while also inspiring great work, to see a bigger picture than anyone else in the industry. When it turned out they couldn't do this -- and of course none of them could -- their businesses would suffer or even fail.

    If we aren't already, we will soon be awash in articles on the management and leadership lessons of Jobs' career. Such lessons do exist, and I believe they're extremely important. But they're about the nuts and bolts of organization, structure, competencies, and incentives, not about the ineffable qualities of the man himself.

    For now, let's be clear on what not to learn from Jobs. We can't be him. He was a unique combination of compulsions, traits, and experiences. I asked the consultant if Jobs should be regarded as an Alexander the Great figure, a one-time phenomenon that is not to be replicated. Yes, he agreed.

    A challenge for business people will be finding inspiration in Jobs without deluding themselves into thinking they can figure out how to do what he did. Here's a way to start: by remembering that imitating someone else was the very last thing Steve Jobs ever wanted to do.