The Story of Steve Jobs - An Inspiration or a Cautionary Tale

Chipp Walters chipp at chipp.com
Mon Aug 13 21:13:14 EDT 2012


Bob,

I 100% agree with what you say. Each person needs different kinds of
motivation. I used to have a brillant game designer who was unmatched in
our company. Still, every 6 months or so I needed to go in to his office
and have a heart to heart regarding his work ethic. Then, he was good for
another 5 months...

Another guy I worked with was so conscientious that if even suggested he
wasn't giving me 100% it would crush him and he would sulk for days. I
really only ever did this once and learned my lesson as his manager.

As you say, there are some who are self-motivated, and others need some
'prodding.' I don't think ever diminishing somebody in front of their
co-workers provides any sort of long term results. Jobs got away of it in
spite of himself. I was hired as a consultant at Apple and knew a bunch of
employees, and most every one of them had a real entitlement issue-- so
much so they thought they didn't have to do their work and hired folks like
me to do it for them.

There was this young early 20 something Apple employee I met at his
cubicle. He showed me the websites he was working on-- so proud he was of
their design. The websites were for local businesses and I asked him if
Apple was designing sites for small companies? His reply was no, it's his
own company (his "company logo" was there on his Apple computer desktop)
and that Apple didn't pay him enough so he had to do work outside. I asked
him how much Apple was paying him and he replied $82K. Wow.

I knew many others there who didn't think they were paid enough, or
complained incessantly. I suppose it's the consultant mindset in me that
makes me bristle at the whole entitlement thing-- when I've got to go out
and sell the job, work with the client, do the job well enough so they'll
come back again next month. As a consultant, you're not guaranteed a salary
from month to month. (Of course, come to think of it, the same is true for
employees these days-- with a net loss of over 300,000 jobs in America
these past 3 years..
http://www.libertynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/prez-jobs-1024x791.jpg)

Jobs brilliance and superb product line management created space for these
people to exist-- so in some small way, I can *kinda* see him going off.
Still, some of the stories where he just fired folks for no good reason--
seemingly to just throw his weight/ego around-- I dunno.

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 11:54 AM, Bob Sneidar <bobs at twft.com> wrote:

> There are different methods for dealing with each of these kinds of
> workers, and applying any single method of management across the board can
> be disastrous. Put a self motivator on a short leash and you can expect he
> will be working for someone else within six months. Let everything fall out
> as it will as though everyone had a high work ethic, and you can expect
> widespread lethargy and an environment of strife and contention well within
> six months.
>
>



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