Throughout my employed career, from age 15 to when I retired in my sixth decade, in small companies and large, in each instance I seemed to encounter at least one bully/jerk in the organization. I call them "BJs." And whether this person was male or female, a client, or the management person I reported to, working with or for a BJ is always one of the biggest challenges one will ever face in a career. If you've not experienced this sort of problem, you're damn lucky--good for you. Maybe your Dad owns the company or maybe you're the BJ.
However, some BJs do great work. They may have a vision and they push people to higher levels of excellence. This is certainly not true with all of them; as a rule, it isn't. But one guy who, apparently, was a BJ-type but who I admire and appreciate and am grateful for what he did in the computer industry. Without him, and his Mac SE back in the 80s, I would never have developed the computer skills that I use in abundance today.
I'm talking, of course, with the greatest respect, about the late Steve Jobs. And I just read a book that everyone in management or anyone who is a student or trying to grow a career, should read. It's entitled Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success by Ken Segall and published this year (2012) by Portfolio/Penguin.
According to information on the book's jacket, "Segall worked closely with Steve Jobs as an ad agency creative director for NeXT and Apple. He was a member of the team that created Apple's legendary Think different campaign." He worked with Jobs on many projects; more specifically, he learned to work with Jobs and understand his quirks and passions. Jobs was indeed on the good side of my definition of a BJ and thankfully, he was. Without him, America would not be the country where the Mac and the iPAD a lot of other highly useful products was created. He drove all of the "i" product designs with a unique passion and, yes, at times by being a bit of a bully. At least that's what I concluded from Segall's excellent book.
Segall writes that Jobs couldn't stand too many people in a meeting. Either can I. There's an incident, recalled in the book, of how Jobs asked someone in a meeting why they were there. This person gave some lame answer about being brought up "to speed" about new products coming down the Apple road. Jobs told her there was no reason for her to be in that meeting. She had to pack-up and get out. A bit "bully-ish," ya, I suppose, but you couldn't imagine--or maybe you could--the number of meetings I went to in my corporate job where way too many people were in some "informational" meeting. And, once in a while, I wish the boss had thrown me out! I had better things to do with my time than sit in some session where no decision would be made and responsibility would be diffused. Jobs took responsibility for leadership, had a vision, and knew how to get there. To me, that's what Segall's book is all about. Read it.
As a convenience, if you click the link below, you'll go to the Amazon website where you can order the book, either in hardcover or in the Kindle format:
