

Get Out of My Building - bhousel
http://steveblank.com/2009/10/08/get-out-of-my-building/

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ajju
This is a great article, but episode 1 of the Ardent story is a bit scary. How
does a startup team go from making a hypertext like software application to
supercomputers which require:

"We had to write our parallelizing and vectorizing compilers and build our own
high-end graphics boards, and write our own 3d graphics subroutine language –
and put in all in a box that could fit in an office. Oh, and since it was not
code compatible with anything, we were going to have to port all the key
scientific applications our customers needed (as soon as we figured out who
they were.)"

Apparently they did ship (some product(s)) based on their wikipedia article,
which is impressive given the odds stacked against them.

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cmos
damm! Now that's an intense experience. I'm often impressed with leaders that
have a level of control over their emotions and intensity with the ability to
use them to their advantage, with the right emotion tailored for the right
situation.

~~~
dschobel
Wait, are you talking about the CEO shrieking "get out of my building and get
out of my company"?

That's not leadership, that's insanity and unmitigated disdain for his
employees.

~~~
kungfooey
I agree. The first time an employer screams at me will also be the last. It is
unprofessional and abusive.

~~~
cmos
Valid point - but from the way the article was written this was a life
changing event.

Read it again.

While I agree 'yelling' is not the most professional method of getting your
point across, the CEO felt the need to impress a point on everyone that he
wasn't going to stand for something. And that he was going to put resources
(travel with VP of sales to talk to customers) into the person he was yelling
at to make sure he does things differently.

This was not a casual emotional rant about something he said. This was a
thought out attack on a way of thinking that was unacceptable to the CEO,
followed up with a strategy to fix it.

I'll bet the author would agree that was one of the more pivotal moments of
his professional life. A lot of CEO's might hear a comment like that, file it
away, and then just not promote you, or put you first in line to be laid off.
It takes effort and guts to stand up and pronounce what you, the leader of the
company, believe in.

And that's something that's often missing today with CEO's.

~~~
peterb
Right. You can also look at it as a type of hack ... an emotional hack, if you
will. It tends to work well with men. It is similar to the cliche teachers
use: "you will never amount to anything". The idea is you will get so angry,
you will self-motivate just to prove them wrong. The army also uses these
tricks in boot camp.

A good leader will figure out a priori which techniques work with which people
and apply them appropriately.

~~~
ahoyhere
I'm sure nobody cares, but there's a huge body of psychological research that
goes to show that such "negative motivations" do. not. work.

They are especially horrible when the person is in a real position of
authority, like an adult over a child (parent, teacher), or an employer. It
not only de-motivates over the long term, it causes a lot of damage to the
relationship.

The military situation is a bit different, because of the pseudo-brainwashing
("break em down and build em up" approach -- downvote me if you like, but we
all know that's an explicit goal to create team cohesion), not to mention huge
legal obligations, and maybe because of the type of people who go into it to
start with.

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Shooter
At least there was a lesson ;)

My first job out of college was with a high-end security company (biometric
systems at Langley, DOD, etc.) I was hired by the National Sales Director.
They flew me across the country and put me up in a nice hotel for my first
meeting with the CEO and for training on their monitoring systems. They had
spent at least a few grand on my trip.

I walked into the first meeting, and the CEO looked up and saw me. "Get that
motherf*cker out of my sight!!!! I don't want to see him again until he's
fixed!!!" He was apoplectic. A bunch of no-neck guys from Philly and NYC (I
was later told some of the investors were mobsters) ushered me out of the
room. I was shaken up, because it was my first job and I had no idea what I
had done wrong. The guy who hired me told me to go back to the hotel and enjoy
the pool...and that he would talk to me later. No indication as to whether I
was fired or what was going on. My nerves went to hell while I was waiting for
him to call me. And my wife wanted to know why my 'important meetings' had
only lasted three minutes.

It turns out the CEO has a huge issue with non-white dress shirts. He thought
anything other than plain white was unprofessional and offensive. (I was
wearing a blue dress shirt that my wife had bought me as a gift.) He decided
he would rather waste several thousand dollars and have me come back another
time than see a non-white dress shirt. He was successful enough that most
people humored his eccentricities. [I had another boss that would go
absolutely nuts if you shut any door in the building. He would almost foam at
the mouth. He had a phobia of closed doors because of something that had
happened to him in foster care. He fired at least one girl because she kept
shutting doors out of habit.]

I think if a boss is going to have frequent asylum-quality meltdowns, it's
nice when you can at least learn something beyond "This person is crazy. Be
careful." It sounds like Steve learned an important lesson, even if the
instructor was unpleasant.

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InclinedPlane
Regardless of the end result here, yelling and intimidation are not healthy
forms of communication or modes of professional social interaction. If you
can't make your point without yelling then you probably don't have a good
point.

Yelling and intimidation shuts down communication. It raises adrenalin which,
more often than not, shuts down brains (quite literally). When people feel
threatened, by the CEO of their company no less, their bodies activate a
flight-or-fight response. Part of this response includes shutting down blood
flow to the more rational parts of the brain, leaving the primitive parts with
control. The result is that people tend to either enter into highly emotional
shouting matches devoid of reason or logic (fight) or they shut down, stay
quiet and try to ride out the "attack" (flight). Neither of these are healthy
or contribute to worthwhile discussion.

The CEO yelling at employees in a business meeting is as sure a way to shut
down rational discourse and profitable interchange of ideas as an entry level
employee pulling a gun.

~~~
rimantas
Why would anyone want to discard the end result there? It matters. CEO did not
make his point by yelling. The point was made by explanation that followed the
yelling. So yes, you are right, yelling did shut down the brains of the author
for a while, but wasn't that the idea? To get him out of "know-all" attitude?
To reboot the brain and feed a new program into it? Not that I like this way
of getting the point across, but in this case it did work.

~~~
Estragon
The main problem is, that's not the end result, only the immediate result. The
end result was likely that people were scared to express opinions to the CEO,
and a culture of disrespect and hostility developed in the company. Ever heard
of Ardent before? Me neither.

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romanm
I am inviting everyone to imagine that he is running a company, would he use
such an Armageddon weapon, hmm...

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diablo_r
I am curious what was his first sentence when he has to speak to that boss
again :)

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_pius
Just awesome.

~~~
michaelkeenan
The linked blog post is about the learning experience a guy had when he said
something pointless without thinking among a group of people who would prefer
to be using their time and energy more productively.

~~~
_pius
The linked blog post is about a lesson a then out-of-touch marketer learned
from an insightful but admittedly abusive boss.

~~~
jodrellblank
The comparison being drawn is that you've been voted down for "saying
something pointless without thinking among a group of people who would prefer
to be using their time and energy more productively".

~~~
_pius
Wow, I'm embarrassed I didn't get that.

