Much of what many of us are working on this last week of 2008 is what will happen to Apple after Jobs leaves. This got me to recall the years I worked at Disney shortly after Walt died and how that company changed. It was a traumatic time for me personally because I saw a company I loved change to something else and it was the only time in my life I actually walked off a job, giving no notice.

Remembering a Magical Disney

For a lot of us working at Disney at the time it wasn't a job, not really, it was a life choice. In my own case I would work one shift paid and then often go back to work a second unpaid because I enjoyed it so much. While there weren't many who were that nuts, I was young and, for awhile, Disney was my life.

It was magical and while there were clearly problems, as there are with any job, the magic of just being there in the midst of fantasy, creativity, and dreams made real made those problems trivial. But, things were changing, new management was measured on solid financial results and a lot of the things that made Disney special were eliminated one by one.

What gave me the final wake-up call was the elimination of every middle manager who didn't have a college degree. Some of these folks had been at the park since the beginning, were some of the greatest folks you'd ever want to work for. To me; they clearly embodied the ideals Walt had driven into the park.

The folks that replaced them were business graduates and MBAs and I left Disney to first pick up a Business degree and then an MBA on my own but never went back.

I think Disney lost its heart at that time and the fact they had to acquire Pixar, which clearly had the kind of fire and imagination that Disney once had, was to get that heart back. I still don't see it reflected in the parks broadly yet as new editions look more like copies of other's memories than they do Disney properties.

It is interesting to note that one of their most successful recent franchises, Pirates of the Caribbean, was actually derived from a ride rather than the traditional other way around. It seemed like Disney had to reach back to its roots to discover some of that old Pixy Dust that once made it more than just a company.

Apple's Sad Future

Steve Jobs is as much a part of Apple as Walt was of Disney. The company may not bear his name but it is a representation of much of what is good and creative about him. When he leaves Apple will lose that and his replacement, like Walt's, will likely go back to the management fundamentals that drive most companies. Apple will lose its heart, but it doesn't necessarily have to.

Every company has within it at least one person who has captured the core ideals of the firm and is capable of becoming its heart. The key task for Apple will be find that person and help them grow to embrace this responsibility.

You would think, given what happened in the years Steve wasn't at Apple, that the Apple senior management and board would know this. But I've never actually seen a company even try to do this successfully.

This doesn't mean Apple will fail as a company, IBM still exists after the Watson's, and Disney is still around and very powerful, but it does mean it will likely change to become just another product company with a memorable brand. We have so few firms that are as unique as Apple is and Disney once was, it will be sad to watch Apple become less than what it is, or what it otherwise could be.