There is a video of Steve Jobs brainstorming with his new
team at NeXT Inc., which was an interesting look into a brilliant mind at work.
In the beginning, the atmosphere during the first thirty days of the startup company
seemed friendly, energized and cohesive in their new collective creative
mission to launch a new product. Only ninety days in and I could feel the
tension from this side of my very handy and portable iPad screen. This may
perhaps be the nature of a startup company where the inevitable pressure kicks
in and the days are dreadful and grueling until you make it or break it. The
NeXT team projected having a product to unveil in eighteen months, and after six
months together they may not be on target to meet their goals and the consternation
starts to set in. Steve Jobs was visibly distressed, pacing, interrupting and
irritable. The ideas were not going anywhere; the wheels were starting to spin.
While I like the idea of building something new, I do not think I would be well
suited for this type of organization. According to my NextSteps Research Management
Assessment (MA), I would do best in a large, rapid growth venture business
environment; there would be more disadvantages than advantages to having me on
this start up team.
As per my MA, my leadership style is tailored toward being a
confident, introverted strategic leader.
Strategic leaders exhibit a
process-oriented leadership approach.
People who are skilled at planning strategies, discovering patterns,
devising and systematizing projects or prototypes, and excel in focusing on
achieving visionary goals are often strategic leaders. This leader likes to encourage innovation,
prefers persuasion as a means of motivating people, and would probably work
well with creative groups with their conceptual, yet results- oriented approach
to leadership.
While I do like to gravitate toward creativity, particularly
in product inventiveness, there are other factors that I believe would weigh
too heavily on me where I did not feel the freedom and space to think from a
peaceful place. Although my MA indicates there is nothing I love more than a
challenge and problem solving I know that I have to feel good to perform well.
My preference is toward team dynamics; however, I have a
strong desire to be appreciated and although it was a team environment, my
definition of team is not a group of individuals that have their own planetary
system complete with a shining star. Jobs’
style seems quite domineering and likely it would have rubbed me the wrong way,
especially if I was being spoken over and dismissed mid-sentence. It is hard to
predict how I would have reacted under his thumb but it would have gone one of
two ways. I would either wither away internally each day like a shrinking
violet until I disappeared completely or I would have exploded all over him in
an epic battle of wit and will. Since I am polite and generally kind it would
probably be the former and not the latter.
There are other personality attributes that I have that are
all wrong for NeXT, Inc. such as not being the type of person that would do
well in a startup company. I have a strong need for structure, conservative
goal ambitiousness, and a low desire for personal risk. While I do not think
working in a computer start up would physically endanger me, my sensibilities
are not aligned to putting my own eggs into a new, uncertain basket that may
render me without employment or a paycheck if the project is a bust. Surely this
could happen at any company at any time, but I feel the risk is too great for a
startup to be my full-time gig. I already do not sound like Steve Jobs
material.
I have a desire for challenges, understand business risk,
have a problem solving drive, and have the urge to invent products, but that is
just not enough to draw me to the NeXT team. I would have been a terrible fit
for them, and it would have been a horrible fit for me. Steve Jobs was wonderful,
brilliant, but not for me. I am satisfied appreciating his work and legacy from
afar.
No comments:
Post a Comment