Things New Apple CEO Tim Cook Needs to Focus on

With Tim Cook having taken over as the CEO of Apple Inc., there are a few aspects he will have to keep in mind.

The main characteristics of leaders who are focused on transforming an organization are envisaging, invigorating and facilitating.

Envisaging is identified as generating and conveying a vision of a prospective condition of the organization. The leader has to ensure that the members of the organization recognize this vision at different levels enabling a shared vision of the entire organization.

Invigorating fundamentally comprises motivating the people engaged in the organizational change and improving their morale.

Facilitating involves authorizing the people required to be part of the change with the essential devices and supplies to execute the necessary functions.

The leadership will also need to take care of the aspects of the organization given below.

Strategic context
Strategic context comprises mainly three aspects, which assist the management to understand the prospects and restrictions that are faced by the organization. These three aspects are as follows:

(1) The surroundings within which the organization functions
(2) The resources which are on hand for the organization
(3) The past account of the organization.

The strategic context is the critical primary stage. After the comprehension of the strategic context is done it is possible to move to the next steps. These include preparing for the strategic choices, identifying and describing significant tasks, and confirming association among those significant tasks and the members of the organization, the culture of the organization and, also importantly, the organization as a whole. In addition, with any change in the strategic context it needs to be noted that the current strategic choices can possibly be wrong, significant tasks could be out of direction and associations out of line.

Structural inertia
Structural inertia is the opposite to the transformation that originates from the volume, intricacies and interconnections of the frameworks, schemes and prescribed procedures of the organization. These intricacies and interconnections build up and enlarge over a period with the organization advancing from minor-sized and uncomplicated units into huge and highly composite units. Structural inertia is not much of an issue in a steady and secure environment. In such surroundings, the modifications required will be only minor in extent and so can be easily handled. However, in a changing environment, structural inertia is capable of resulting in breakdowns and letdowns.

Cultural inertia
Similar to the earlier concept of inertia in the structure, there can be a resistance to modification in culture as well. This is termed as cultural inertia. This is usually occurs in an organization which has attained a certain age and level of achievement. Culture is the collective anticipation on the manner in which matters have to be executed in an organization. It is exhibited as unofficial customs, importance, group connections and also legends and champions that have been built and enlarged in the organization over a period. With an organization becoming triumphant, the collective anticipation will turn out to be set up and cemented as a result of the same achievement. However, this culture can cause a negative influence on the organization by means of an impending attitude of contentment which will prevent further development and also keep the organization trapped in the history without looking at the prospects for the future.