Inside RIM: The Failure of a “Visionary CEO”
Boy Genius Report did some digging and interviewed some former RIM executives on the state of the co-CEOs of RIM.
In it, we find the failure of visionary CEOs:
“BlackBerry smartphones will never have cameras because the No. 1 customer of ours is the U.S. government,” Mike Lazaridis would say in meetings. “There will never be a BlackBerry with an MP3 player or camera.”
The goal of a leader is not to have the answers and execute it. As the article puts, “every product was Mike Lazaridis’ baby.” The role of a leader is to establish a framework for what questions need to be answered, then bring in brilliant people to solve those problems.
It’s what Jared Spool calls “self-design.” Lazaridis designed the phone that he thought would be successful. It worked for a decade, but ultimately will be the downfall of RIM.
Definitely a great read.