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June 23, 2009
The secrecy tax
Apple apparently goes to great, almost CIA-like lengths to maintain secrecy.
It includes mazes of security doors, numeric codes to enter one's office, which is constantly monitored by security cameras, red warning lights when secret devices are unmasked, and the deliberate spread of misinformation inside the company, according to the Times.
Secrecy isn't a communications strategy at Apple. It's part of the company's cultural DNA, and it generates staggering levels of free press and PR.
That makes many companies want to emulate Apple's culture of secrecy, but the company is and always will be an anomaly. It has spent 30 years refining its secrecy culture. The physical and mental costs must be enormous, creating what surely must be a secrecy tax on its products.
So unless you have the world's most gifted engineers, designers and marketers with a track record of creating products that will sell a million units a year along with a gifted, messianic founder, then a culture based on transparency, truth and openness are a lot easier, and less expensive, to manage.
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I think it is always a mistake to try and copy a business in secrey. Most just do not really have anything of interest going on, so trying to pretend like you can not tell anyone anything is the only way they can get somoeone interested in them.
Dr. Wright
The Wright Place TV Show
http://wrightplacetv.com
www.twitter.com/drwright1
You're absolutely on point re: Apple's culture. That certainly doesn't make the company inept or inadequate, as evidenced by the fact that the company has s generally served its shareholders very well. Apple has absolutlely no obligation to disclose anything other than what regulatory laws state - and they appear to have followed those requirements (see www.EveryDayPR.net for details). However, from a communications perspective, a lack of transparency in today's business climate may come back to haunt them. Hope they have a good crisis communications plan.
They are only secretive to a point. Being in the US, it's impossible to truly maintain secrecy from everybody, especially the government. There's the IRS, federal agents, etc, etc. But it looks cool on camera.
And by a million units in a year, you mean a weekend right? Thats how many new iPhone 3GS's were sold last weekend after its release. Even though secrecy hurts most, they have found the way to make it work, and work really well.
Giant company like Apple can create secrecy as a marketing tool. With its genius founder and key personnel, the company can be successful of playing with the truth. But of course, transparency is always important in creating great relationships – that is between a company and its customers.
Well, I certainly understand keeping a hot new design a secret to keep someone else from pushing out something similar ahead of their product. And, the buzz it creates leading up to the release doesn't hurt business either.
The thing is that transparency is not always easier to manage. If you put everything out in the open, then you put everything up for debate. Most technology companies do not make a habit of doing this, so why only single out Apple? Microsoft does not share well, how about IBM? It is just good business.
It would be supremely cool if Apple set up all those flashing red lights and secret codes as a hoax to the media. Make it seem like Apple is a secret skunkworks developing the next generation uber-product.
When the reporters leave, everything goes back to normal and the employees get a good chuckle out of it.
If only it were true.
Ben,
How true! The unique factors that make secrecy workable for Apple come with a price, an Apple tax. On the flipside, any organization that chooses to focus on creating a specific culture cuts off other possibilities.
The origin of the word decide is decidir. It is translated "to cut off." When you decide to choose a culture of secrecy, you, in fact, "cut off" the option to have a culture of transparancy, truth and openness.
Choosing a focus also means "choosing not" other alternatives. A reminder that our organizational decisions have implications on the future of our companies.
Jim
Jim Connolly | Organizational Results Experts | www.orgresults.net/newsblog
