Most of us have met �bozos� before in our work and personal lives. If you�re lucky, you�ve only seen them in the check-out aisle at the grocery store and quickly been able to divert your path away to a different lane � never to see them again.
If you�re unlucky, you work for a �bozo� or near one.
There is nothing more soul-crushing than being constantly surrounded by bozos in your life. And there�s nothing that kills a company faster that the rapid proliferation of bozos working for it (especially as CEO).
What is a bozo? It�s a little like pornography, you know it when you see it. However, let me try to more precisely define one.
A bozo is someone who thinks they are much smarter and capable than they actually are. They constantly over-estimate their abilities and under-estimate the risks and threats around them. They typically don�t keep an open-mind. They look instead for data that confirms a previously held bias. They also don�t handle details well. They expect other people to clean up their messes when they happen, and so don�t feel the need to obsess over the little things. Because they don�t have a keen sense for the competitive market in which they operate, they typically don�t have good judgment in key strategic decisions or when hiring top talent. Instead of hiring the smartest folks around them, bozos prefer to hire people who blow smoke, telling them how great they are, or for some non-obvious business reason such as sharing the same college or frat.
One of the first detailed discussions of the damage bozos can do to companies was in Walter Isaacson�s recent biography on Steve Jobs at Apple (AAPL).
Here are some choice Jobs� quotes from the book on the subject:
- On John Sculley: �I began to realize this a months after he arrived. He didn�t learn things very quickly, and the people he wanted to promote were usually bozos.�
- From Atari�s Al Alcorn: �Sculley believed in keeping people happy and worrying about relationships. Steve didn�t give a shit about that. But he did care about the product in a way that Sculley never could, and he was able to avoid having too many bozos working at Apple by insulting anyone who wasn�t an A player.�
- On getting rid of the bozos who worked at Apple after he sold NeXT to Apple: �I wanted to make sure the really good people who came in from NeXT didn�t get knifed in the back by the less competent people who were then in senior jobs at Apple.�
- When he was asked by an Apple director what he thought of then CEO Gil Amelio: �
I thought to myself, I either tell him the truth, that Gil is a bozo, or I lie by omission. He�s on the board of Apple, I have a duty to tell him what I think; on the other hand, if I tell him, he will tell Gil, in which case Gil will never listen to me again, and he�ll fuck the people I brought into Apple. All of this took place in my head in less than thirty seconds. I finally decided that I owed this guy the truth. I cared deeply about Apple. So I just let him have it. I said this guy is the worst CEO I�ve ever seen, I think if you needed a license to be a CEO he wouldn�t get one. When I hung up the phone, I thought, I probably just did a really stupid thing.�
- On how Amelio had no self-awareness that he was a bozo: �He was just such a buffoon, and he took himself so seriously. He insisted that everyone call him Dr. Amelio. That�s always a warning sign.�
No comments:
Post a Comment