As Scott Forstall is pushed out of leading iOS development at Apple, some choice quotes are coming about about his management, including his “abrasive style”. Hey, that’s me!
I the middle of a development rush, it is difficult to understand why I become so cold, direct, angry or abrasive. Most of the time, people don’t want to understand the source of the anger, even if that anger was for legitimate reasons. You might even say that anger is never legitimate, but the hard truth is that sometimes being “abrasive” is needed to move things forward. The thing is that a lot of people may not be in position to fully understand the immediate danger of some situation, so in a way emotion is a tool that can help communicate that, if sporadically used.
That, or maybe I’m just rationalizing my asshole-ness in the workplace. Either way, good or wrong, my emotions ends up not changing much, and in resignation I end up fixing everything myself. Maybe that’s the difference between an “abrasive style” of management versus of engineering: The latter gets things done, the former just ends up annoying everybody.
Published on October 29, 2012 at 21:27 EDT
Older post: You don't need a Word Processor
Newer post: Does Data Float