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Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’

I realize that Steve Jobs is revered by his disciples but he must have been a horrible boss.

I know that, despite how he treated them, most of his former employees say positive things about Steve. But that reminds me of a guy I once worked with who embraced a Marine bootcamp approach when training new employees. He first took every opportunity to publicly humiliate them. Then, once their self-esteem was at or below ground level, he would feed them the occasional compliments so that they came to rely on him for their sense of self worth. I’m not accusing Jobs of being that consciously manipulative but the results of his behavior seem similar.

Giving Steve is due, the guy was an astute visionary and an amazing salesman. He understood how to be a messiah to his geek constituency and he did set the bar high for the rest of us.

All of that said, I don’t want to give the impression that I have a negative attitude about the guy. As his wife observed, he was a flawed and complicated man; at times cruel and hard-hearted, at times teary and vulnerable.

Some of the quotes and insights which I jotted down while listening to the audiobook:

*Stand at the intersection of humanities and science.
*The various religions are different doors to the same house.
*Form follows emotion
*The journey is the reward.
*Today isn’t liberal vs. conservative. It’s constructive vs. destructive
*One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are.
*Prune to keep the tree strong.
*If you’re not busy being born, you’re busy dying. (Bob Dylan)

Full disclosure: I’m a PC, not an Apple (Although, I do now use an iPhone). So, I until I read this book, I didn’t know much about Steve Jobs except for his legend. Like most, I was saddened when he died and I got emotional when I watched the YouTube clip of his 2005 Stanford commencement address.

But this was not a warm & fuzzy guy.

Steve Jobs was a guy who behaved like he believed he was a chosen one. And, because he had a genius for design, an ability to intimidate (he used that intense stare you see on the book cover to great effect), and a gift to persuade, we enabled him.

That’s a cause for mixed emotions about the man but Steve Jobs’ positive impact on society is undeniable.

The first time I learned about Jim Collins’ work was several years ago during my first job interview in a decade. I prepared for my interview by reviewing Harvey MacKay’s classic suggestions for responses to interview questions and doing my due diligence about the medical facility to which I was applying. However, when the interviewer’s first question was about how, in my position in the marketing/PR/communications department, I’d improve a patient’s experience, and then talked about getting the right people in the right seats on the bus, I knew that things had changed in the HR world.

“Great By Choice” is Jim Collins’ collaboration with his former student, Morten Hansen, to discover the facts and the myths about why certain organizations far exceed those of seemingly equal competitors. Collins and Hansen compare eight organizations: Southwest Airlines/ Pacific Southwest Airlines, Stryker/United States Surgical Corp., Progressive Insurance/Safeco Insurance, Intel/AMD, Microsoft/Apple, Amgen/Genetech, Biomet/Kirschner, and the 1911 Amundsen and Scott expeditions to reach the South Pole.

Collins and Hansen describe the high performers in their study cases as “10Xers” because these organizations didn’t just succeed but beat its industry index by at least 10 times. They identify three key characteristics of 10X leadership: fanatic discipline, empirical creativity, and productive paranoia. 10X leaders are passionately driven by a cause beyond themselves. As the authors note, all organizations experience both good and bad luck. It’s what one does with the luck they get which matters. They then offer their ideas about the characteristics which describe a “luck event”.

Collins and Hansen confront some entrenched myths to determine their validity. For instance, there’s the concept that a threat-filled world favors the speedy (“You’re either quick or dead”). Instead, the authors suggest that it’s better to figure out when it’s best to go fast and when it’s best to go slow. Also, there’s the firmly held belief that radical change on the outside requires radical internal changes. Collins & Hansen observe that just because an organization’s external environment is experiencing dramatic change it’s not necessarily a good idea for the organization to radically change itself.

“Great By Choice” presents some interesting concepts such as the “20 Mile March”, “Fire Bullets, Then Cannonballs”, “Return On Luck”, “Moore’s Law”, and SMaC. Collins’ and Hansen’s research presents useful answers to the question: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, while other’s don’t?

No matter whether your endeavor is personal, public service-oriented, or in business, you’ll find the insights provided by this research to be helpful.

Just prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, my brother’s Hotmail account started sending out one of those “I’m stranded in Spain, my wallet’s been stolen and I need you to send me $$$ so I can get home”– email scams to contacts in his address book. I learned about it from friends who contacted me to ask if my brother was aware that his email had been hacked. Oddly, I never received the email directly from him because, as we learned later, somehow my address had been deleted from his contact list.

The situation became more complicated because we were both visiting my mother in New England and her home is equipped with only dial-up internet service and also because my brother, who also only has dial-up service at his home, had signed up for his Hotmail account on a computer at his local library several years ago.

Consequently, when my brother attempted to change his Hotmail password, the system didn’t recognize my mother’s computer and asked my brother for the answer to his secret question. However, the automated Hotmail system didn’t remind him about what the question was and it had been so many years since he’d joined Hotmail that he didn’t recall the question. So, throughout the day on Thanksgiving and continuing through Sunday night, he kept trying to contact Hotmail customer service but the automated system kept giving him the runaround and bouncing him back to his original screens.

When I returned home, I Googled Microsoft customer service and found an 866 number. However, when I called that number there was no option to connect with a Hotmail CSR nor one to connect with a live body. Considering all the criticism that Microsoft has been getting in the techie world during the past several years, I was amazed as well as frustrated.

Fortunately, when my brother returned home on Monday night, he received an email from Hotmail which helped him to change his password. As far as we’re aware, no harm was done however we still find it astonishing that it was such as hassle and took five days to rectify a pretty simple problem. Given 21st century CSR technology, we would have been happy to talk with a live body in the Philippines or Mumbai rather than to just go round and round with an automated customer response system.

What’s your customer service horror story?