As I walked past the crowded biography section of the bookstore the other day, it occurred to me how fascinated we all are by the idea of the great man (and woman). We lap up their stories of triumph, the adversities they tossed aside and the other-worldly lifestyles that have become their rewards. And we are forever curious about the qualities that make these people so special; the vision, creativity, courage, single-mindedness, energy, resilience and in so many instances, the larger than life personalities. In the end, we hope that maybe, just maybe, we can glean and apply tidbits from their career blueprints to our own less than perfect lives.
Quite inconveniently, the reality is that many of these great people are one-of-a-kind characters, a hodgepodge of attributes which somehow combine to brilliant effect but which do not easily deconstruct for the purposes of imitation. Let me illustrate.
Steven Jobs is a great entrepreneur by any standard. He founded, was fired from and subsequently rescued Apple Computer from the grips of professionally managed mediocrity. Under his leadership, Apple has produced a breathtaking array of innovative category-making technologies and a global brand with few peers. He is also the man who bought the animation studio Pixar, a company whose subsequent string of ground-breaking successes lead to its acquisition by the openly envious Disney Corporation, in the process making Mr. Jobs its single largest shareholder. He is a visionary of uncanny clarity, an unrelenting builder, a perfectionist, a true maverick before the term was cheapened by the political crowd. His personal story is no less fascinating. Given up at birth for adoption, a cancer survivor, a Buddhist …..it goes on and on.
Humbling as this list of accomplishments are, it also bears noting that Steven Jobs has also been described as a first class ‘asshole’ who parks his Mercedes in the company handicapped parking spot, micromanages with the detail and intensity of an electron microscope, and demeans people in public whenever and wherever the occasion strikes him. Obsessive, tyrannical and with an explosive ‘filthy temper’, he has been described as an elitist who characterizes employees in binary terms, either as ‘geniuses or bozos’. For most employees, life with Steve is ‘a constant hero-shithead roller-coaster”. His orbit includes both die-hard loyalists and scores who have fallen off, jumped off or been pushed off his amusement ride.
As the case of Steven Jobs and so many others illustrates, the gift of a given attribute is often offset, balanced if you will, by glaring weaknesses and/or idiosyncrasies in others. In fact, strengths can be so strong, so pure that they become eccentricities or weaknesses onto themselves. Technical brilliance can leave little room for business or people skills. Market and customer intuitiveness can disable operational proclivities. Purity of forward vision can be accompanied by peripheral blind-spots such as arrogance, autocratic or micromanaging leadership styles, volatility, hubris, and even eccentricities which limit overall effectiveness. Greatness is thus more reasonably viewed as a magical blend of balancing and conflicting attributes, one almost impossible to untangle for the purposes of emulation.
In a recent biography of the legendary Canadian helicopter entrepreneur Craig Dobbin, the author notes the challenges for all of us in attempting to imitate the great man, “The trouble is that to succeed at Craig Dobbin’s level, you have to be Craig Dobbin. And we will never, in our lifetime, see anyone like him again”.
Looking for a dynamic HR role? Stay away from the entrepreneurial tech sector.
January 1, 2012
In a recent survey of HR graduate students, the technology sector rated among the most coveted destinations to ply their trade. It is viewed as a world of innovative people, technologies and approaches where progressive talent management, OB/OD and related HR work awaits.
The Cry to Replace RIM's CEOs – A Truly Dumb Idea
October 13, 2011
Leaving aside the recent service outages, the shellacking of RIM in the press is a tad surreal to behold.
For the few Luddites not familiar with the firm, Research in Motion is the successful Canadian smart phone pioneer with revenues of $20bb per year, no debt and cash in the bank. They manufacture products that remain popular around the world and continue to boast technological innovations unmatched by any competitor. Their most recently launched smart phone devices have been well reviewed and appear to be selling well. And though the company's first version of its new tablet, the Playbook, has room for improvement, it is a promising piece of technology.
Context: When Companies Confuse Start-up Experience for Start-up Experience
October 7, 2011
I had the occasion this week to chat with an entrepreneur still licking his wounds from a stalled startup venture. His tale is a reminder of how easily companies misunderstand organizational context when hiring. For startups, such a misunderstanding can be fatal.
The CEO Hiring Practices at HP
October 3, 2011
The press tells us that Hewlett Packard is the largest technology company in the world with revenues of $126bb. Impressive as those numbers may appear, they do not seem to impress HP's Board of Directors. You see they do not believe that any of the firm's 324,600 employees are capable of leading it. Not one person. Not this year or last year when CEO changes were made. In fact they were apparently not capable six years ago or even eleven years ago when CEO changes were also made. But before summarily indicting the firm's succession planning/leadership development programs, it is useful to consider the track record of the external candidates who were considered better choices than the firm's internal candidates. This analysis decidedly shifts the spotlight to the competence of Hewlett Packard's Board of Directors.
The Folly of Believing What You Read
September 19, 2011
Some time ago we posted a blog titled ‘So you REALLY want to be a CEO?' which looked at the human costs of climbing the upper rungs of the management ladder. The blog was based on a series of articles immediately following the ‘resignation' of Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler. All of these articles presented a cautionary tale of life in the fast lane, the long hours, the extensive global travel, and the shareholder pressures that accompany an uncooperative stock price. They also spoke poignantly of the physical and emotional toll that such unrelenting pressure took on the Pfizer CEO who eventually resigned in order to attend to his family and health. As it turns out however, much of this narrative may not have been true
Before sending us your resume (and then getting frustrated with us) ask who we work for
July 25, 2011
A friend of mine is a trustee in bankruptcy. As his title suggests, he and his firm serves those contemplating the ‘cleansing' process of personal bankruptcy. Potential customers compare service providers, select one, and then pay the chosen firm a fee to initiate and manage the ensuing process on their behalf. However, as soon as the relief-seeking customer signs on the dotted line, the trustee's allegiance shifts to the creditors for whom they then seek to maximize debt recovery. This shift in who works for whom must be a tad unsettling for people who already have a heap of problems and stress on their hands.
What Dating Services Can Teach Companies About Hiring
June 1, 2011
Executive-level hiring is a decidedly aspirational endeavor. Organizations idealize their workplace cultures, select for attributes that will fit into those romanticized environments, and then immerse unsuspecting hires into their ice-cold reality of their works-in-progress.
How to Survive a Startup - by Jill Ram
April 20, 2011
If you're an executive and you're thinking of joining a start-up, know what stage of a start-up to join. If the company is in its first year or so, don't expect to make significant changes. If you join after the company is somewhat established and mistakes have been made and learned from, you'll likely be more successful from the outset. If the founder has stepped aside, well, by then, the company is likely not considered a start-up anymore. It won't be functioning like a big company yet, and it won't have all the structure in place that it needs, but it will be run with more practicality and with less emotion. Timing is everything so choose it well.
Good News for the Old, Overqualified and Overlooked
March 18, 2011
It is expected that a significant percentage of the baby boomer generation will drive right past the Freedom 55 highway exit. For many the goal of early retirement will have proven to be unattainable hype, while for others the ups and downs of working will appear more attractive than the prospects of working up and down the local lawn bowling leadership board.
Pressed for time? Blame those Benedictine Monks.
February 24, 2011
It is among the principal reasons candidates tell us they are open to consider a change in employers. They are tethered to it, yet somehow it still flees. It is time, the most precious of resources, and for many harried executives they want some of it back.
Though their relationship with time may be strained, it is worth pointing out that it was not always this way. In his fascinating book Time Wars, Jeremy Rifkin chronicles the evolution of our modern relationship with time. He points out that in traditional agrarian and pastoral cultures, time was a very naturalistic notion maintained in cyclical, repetitive, biological and even sacred terms. The ‘passing of time' was cued via the changing seasons, biological lifecycles and lunar patterns and thus, the cadence and tempo of those societies were finely tuned to the cyclical rhythms of their physical environments. As he states, "Our early ancestors coveted the circle, perceiving time as eternal return, a ceaseless repetition of an endless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth". Since these cyclical rhythms could neither be accelerated, nor altered, the cadence of these societies' was natural and harmonious.
The Folly of Imitating the Great Man (or Woman)
October 2, 2008