Actionable frameworks
Questions and approaches you can bring into a real meeting, not just inspirational ideas to underline.
Making Things Better · By Ben Klaiber
Fix what'sbroken.Before it breaks you.
What Steve Jobs' most consequential decisions can teach us about fixing the things everyone else has learned to live with.
A field guide to finding root causes, questioning assumptions, eliminating unnecessary complexity, and making meaningful change actually work.
471 pagesSubstantial, practical depth
Documented historyApple's turnaround examined
Tools, not mythologyMethods to apply to real problems
For builders and leadersOperations, product, management
Why this book is different
This isn't another Steve Jobs biography. It's a toolkit for fixing what isn't working.
There's no shortage of books celebrating bold vision. Far fewer show you how to trace a recurring failure to its source, challenge an assumption nobody questions, and make a solution survive contact with reality.
Documented decisions
Look beyond the Jobs mythology and examine what changed, why, and what the decisions reveal.
Cross-functional perspective
Understand how technology, people, incentives, and operations shape the same outcome.
Transferable lessons
Adapt the reasoning to your organization, whether the problem is familiar or the idea feels out of reach.
Sound familiar?
You know something needs to change. So why does it keep staying the same?
Sometimes the problem is obvious. The reason it persists isn't. These are the situations where better questions can change the outcome.
Problems everyone has accepted
Recurring workarounds and frustrating processes have become “just how things are done.”
Promising ideas that never launch
A worthwhile improvement stalls at a technical hurdle, an old assumption, or a complicated handoff.
More activity, little progress
Teams measure effort, add tools, and hold meetings without meaningfully improving the result.
Solutions that create new problems
Fixing one department's symptom makes the customer experience or another team's job worse.
What you'll learn
How to see the actual problem, then do something about it.
This book draws lessons from Apple's recovery and the decisions behind it, translating them into ways to approach difficult problems in organizations of very different sizes.
- Separate symptoms from the mechanism producing them.
- Ask the Five Surgical Questions before prescribing a fix.
- Tell meaningful measures from attractive but misleading metrics.
- Recognize when strategic subtraction beats another addition.
- Challenge constraints that may only exist because nobody revisited them.
- Account for the experience of the people who have to make the change work.
A central idea from Making Things Better
“Everything is theoretically impossible until someone who doesn't know it's impossible does it anyway.”Ben Klaiber · Making Things Better
Three useful starting points
Memorable frameworks. Practical application.
These ideas give names to recurring failures and make them easier to investigate, discuss, and improve.
The Five Surgical Questions
Move beyond the visible complaint. Examine what is failing, who compensates for it, and what would have to change for the problem to stop returning.
The Arithmetic of Dignity
Question whether the metrics being celebrated actually reflect better outcomes, or simply hide costs pushed onto people elsewhere in the system.
Metal Detectors, Not Magic
Trade the search for one brilliant revelation for disciplined attention to the small, repeated signals that something is fundamentally wrong.
Inside the book
Explore the ideas chapter by chapter.
Six featured chapter themes from the original landing page, and the practical questions they raise.
01
Metal Detectors, Not MagicHow to spot recurring failure instead of waiting for a dramatic crisis.
02
The Five Surgical QuestionsGetting past the surface complaint and identifying the real break.
03
Arithmetic of DignityChoosing measures that reflect what actually matters.
04
Strategic SubtractionWhat becomes possible when unnecessary complexity is removed.
05
Whining vs. Why-ningTurning the energy behind complaints into productive investigation.
06
Bozos Aren't BrilliantLooking clearly at harmful patterns and the costs of tolerating them.
These are featured chapters, not a claim that the book has only six chapters.
What readers are saying
The difference readers notice: substance they can use.
The original book landing page featured reader reactions that emphasized its practical approach, accessibility, and departure from the usual Steve Jobs hero story.
★★★★★
“This book is different from most books about Steve Jobs. It doesn't focus on his personality or hype, but on how he actually fixed broken systems and products. I liked that it's very practical and easy to follow, with real examples from Apple's turnaround.”
Amelia ClarkeReview reproduced from the original book page★★★★★
“This book was written for executives, operators, technologists, organization designers, among others, and is timely, as businesses, companies, or even entrepreneurs grapple with what methods they should use to make things better.”
Marlo FaceyReview reproduced from the original book page★★★★★
“The book never gets bogged down in technical jargon, and I appreciated how each chapter ended with takeaways I could immediately apply. It's rare to find a book that's both inspiring and usable.”
Shaquille E.Review reproduced from the original book page★★★★★
“This book isn't just about Steve Jobs and his work ethics and strategies, but it is truly about fixing broken systems. Figuring out what are the root problems and correcting them to ensure smooth sailing. An excellent motivational book.”
Arrianne PrawlReview reproduced from the original book page★★★★★
“This book gave me a new lens for diagnosing what's genuinely broken in our systems, not just what looks broken on the surface. I walked away with concrete tools, not just inspiration to improve clarity and build coherence in teams and systems that had previously felt stuck.”
ShanekahReview reproduced from the original book pageSee current retailer reviews.
Review counts and availability can change. For the most up-to-date feedback, check the book's live listings.
View on AmazonReader quotations above are preserved from the supplied original page; their present-day retailer status and “verified purchase” labels have not been independently authenticated.
A closer look before you buy
What makes this more than inspiration?
The book's organizing question is practical: how do you stop admiring a successful turnaround and start understanding the decisions that made it possible?
Rather than treating Steve Jobs as a personality to imitate, the framework asks you to examine what was eliminated, what assumptions were questioned, how disconnected work was brought into focus, and what the people executing the change actually needed.
Start here: Identify one recurring frustration in your organization. What happens immediately before it? Who absorbs the cost when it occurs? What workaround has become so familiar that nobody questions it anymore? Those are the kinds of questions this book invites you to pursue.
This is a thematic preview written for the website, not a verbatim excerpt or a downloadable chapter.
About the author
Ben Klaiber
Founder & Principal Workflow & Experience Architect · MMWB Inc.
More than two decades of experience across business operations, management, customer experience, technology, and product development.
Ben's work centers on stubborn problems that don't fit neatly inside one department. His approach combines cross-functional knowledge with practical problem-solving, challenging assumptions and helping people turn good ideas into changes that actually function.
Making Things Better applies that perspective to the documented decisions behind Apple's transformation. It's about understanding why things break, why they stay broken, and what it takes to change the outcome.
Explore Ben's background
Ready to do more than identify the problem?Fix what's broken.
Fix what's broken.
Before it breaks you.
A practical field guide for leaders, builders, and problem solvers who want to see past the obvious, challenge accepted limits, and make better ways of working real.
471 pages · Published by Framewise Press · December 2025 · Formats and prices shown by retailers.
Common questions
Before you start reading.
Is this another biography of Steve Jobs?
No. The book examines documented decisions from Jobs' career, especially Apple's turnaround, to extract useful ways to diagnose problems, simplify complexity, and make change happen.
Who is it for?
Executives, managers, operators, product developers, technologists, organization designers, entrepreneurs, and anyone who needs to solve recurring problems or move worthwhile ideas past stubborn obstacles.
What makes the frameworks useful?
They provide a practical vocabulary for investigating problems: questions to ask, measures to challenge, and assumptions worth reconsidering. The goal is to apply the thinking, not to imitate a famous personality.
Where can I see current formats and pricing?
Use the retailer buttons on this page. Amazon and Apple Books control their own current formats, availability, and prices.
Can I arrange books for a team or discuss a workshop?
For team orders, speaking, or applying these ideas in an organization, contact MMWB to discuss the options. No automatic discount is implied.
Can I get a free chapter or a one-on-one strategy bonus?
The original site advertised both, but its email form did not deliver a chapter, and the countdown reset when the page loaded. Neither offer is active on this revised page. Contact MMWB directly to ask about availability.