“ For those of us lucky enough to work with him, he was a mentor of a lifetime ,” Cook told The Wall Street Journal in a recent interview. The lessons he learned from his longtime mentor helped justify his decision to ignore the doubters and leave a good job at Compaq to join Apple in 1998, he said.
“ I think I had the opportunity of a lifetime to work with a genius who created this entire industry ,” Cook said.
Cook was particularly “enamored” of one particular skill he learned from Jobs, saying: “ Not to be stuck in my past views. Not to be stuck in my ways when presented with new evidence about things. He was always able to change. At first, I was a little surprised by that. And then I became fascinated with that quality .”
Tim Cook and Steve Jobs in 2010. (Photo: Getty)
Cook went on to call Jobs’s willingness to change his mind on any subject “a great skill” — and one that’s less common than people think. “ Very few people have that skill, because they’re so tied to their past views .”
People often form opinions based on emotions, like fear or anger, which makes it hard for them to break free from long-held beliefs, research shows. Those cognitive biases are often so strong that even a new set of clear facts can’t convince a person to change their mind, Keith Bellizzi, a professor of human development at the University of Connecticut, wrote in 2022.
The ability to change perspectives can be a huge benefit for leaders who rely on research and employee input to shape their decision-making. Research shows that seeking out and considering multiple informed opinions, which psychologists call “cognitive flexibility,” is key to becoming smarter and making better decisions.
One of Amazon's famous leadership principles, penned by founder Jeff Bezos, is that good leaders are "right often." The key is not that good leaders are always right — they increase their chances of being right by actively seeking out differing opinions and being willing to change their minds.
“ With practice, you can be right more often, ” Bezos said at the Pathfinder Awards in Seattle in 2016. “ People who are often right, they listen a lot, and people who are often right, they change their minds a lot .”
Bezos passed that attitude on to his successor, current Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. “ I often question my deepest beliefs about a particular topic to see if they’re really true, ” Jassy said in July. “ The key is to have the right people involved to give feedback, to listen to different perspectives, and then to think about the best possible answer for the customer or for the business. It doesn’t matter if it’s your idea or not .”
Likewise, Jobs passed this quality on to his successor, Cook.
“ He loves to debate and he loves to have someone debate him ,” Cook explained, adding: “ And, you can always change his mind if you have the best idea. We changed each other’s minds. That’s why what we do is so effective .”
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