'Management Pearls'

Interesting Management 'Dos'... it's happening, in case you wonder... HOW TO BE A BAD BOSS.: An article from: Soft-Letter...

10 Commandments of Fake Steve Jobs by Carleen Hawn
1. Never let people know where they stand. Keep them guessing. Keep them afraid. Otherwise they get complacent. Creativity springs from fear. Think of a painter… he’s going to starve to death if he doesn’t get his work done … Same goes for the people at Apple and Pixar. They come in every day knowing it could be their last … they work like hell; trust me.
2. You don't have to hire the best people. You can hire anyone as long as you scare the shit out of them … Look at the crappy cars that get made in Detroit, where nobody ever gets fired. Compare that to the stuff that gets made in Vietnamese sweat shops … We can’t literally put our employees lives at risk [but] we never could have made OS X so reliable if our engineers didn’t believe [every] time a bug surfaced one man was going to be killed.
3. Only promote stupid people. But not just any stupid people. You have to find the certain type of stupid people who actually believe they’re super brilliant. They make insanely great managers and are incredibly easy to manipulate. It’s easy to spot them. Former McKinsey consultants are top candidates.
4. Never tell people what is expected of them. Hold people to an impossibly high standard, but here’s the twist — don’t tell them what that standard is. And fire them if they fall short. You know what that does to people? It makes them crazy…Crazy people are more creative. And more productive. Every shrink in the world knows this.
5. A manager should be inconsistent and unpredictable. Be random. One day say something is great and the guy who made it is a genius. The next day say it’s crap, and he’s a moron. Watch how hard that guy will work now, trying to impress you.
6. No praise. Ever. Management gurus also tell you to reward performance … I disagree … Start praising people and pretty soon they starting thinking they’re as smart as you are. You cannot have this. All employees must know at all times that you are better in every way than they are. Repeated criticism in the most humiliating fashion is one way to accomplish this.
7. Keep people's spirits broken. Fire people on a regular basis for no reason. Fly off the handle, shout at people, call them names, then fire them. Or better yet, don’t fire them. let them believe they’ve survived for a few days. Then, when they’re relaxed, call then in and fire them.
8. Throw Tantrums. One [tactic] that should only be used in extreme circumstances … literally cry and scream and roll around on the floor like a three-year-old … It works because it freaks people out to see a grown man crying and screaming. They’ll do anything to make it stop. Brilliant.
9. Don't speak to employees in elevators. I’ll get on the elevator… and smile or say hi … sometimes [employees] carry on a conversation with each other, one that does not include me. I’ll wait until we get to my floor, and then, as the door opens, I’ll turn and say: ‘What you just said is completely wrong. You know not whereof you speak. Please go clean out your desk.’
10. Start with the ad campaign. Part of what makes [Apple] different—and, yes, better—is the way we create products. We don’t start with the product itself. We start with the ads. We’ll spend months on advertisements alone … Everybody else starts with the product. [This] is why most advertising sucks. At Apple … If we can’t come up with a good ad, we probably won’t do the product. Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody

The Most Powerful One

APPLE CEO Steve Jobs, the man behind the popular iPod, is the world's most powerful businessman, according to Fortune Magazine's list of the 25 most influential executives.