Journal · No. 005

It was an issue of execution

Christoph Svoboda · November 14, 2026 · 2 min

Steve Jobs, 1995, asked about Apple's years under John Sculley: “It wasn't an issue of vision. It was an issue of execution.”

Thirty years later, that is still where it breaks. Strategies rarely fail at the ambition. They fail in between.

In between sits the social operating system. The shared references an organization actually decides on: what has priority, which risk is worth taking, whose yes counts.

Animated circle of pendulums forming a rolling ring: someone makes a decision, the next person takes their cue, every action adds a shared reference, the social operating system comes full circle. — Nobody builds the circle. It forms because everyone takes their cues from everyone else.

When the vision and those references read the same, execution almost happens by itself. When they don't, every unit executes its own reading. With full commitment. And for a long time it looks like alignment.

Every unit executes its own reading. With full commitment. And for a long time it looks like alignment.

How do you notice that the two no longer read the same?

This piece first ran on LinkedIn. The discussion lives there.

In the glossary: Shared Reference Intended Operating Reference Social Operating System

It was an issue of execution

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