Three weeks ago I watched Pirates of Silicon Valley again. The portrayal of Steve Jobs was that of a Cult Leader. Manipulative, charismatic, erratic, unaccountable, and attempting to form a totalitarian society. I realize that this is a movie, but even Steve Wozniak states, “the personalities were very accurately portrayed”(http://www.woz.org/letters/pirates/01.html). Jobs isn’t the only Chief who feels a Cult is the way to growth and profitability. I caught the tail end of a TV Special on Wal-Mart. It ended with a sea of people stating the WalMart chant in Unison. Spelling out WalMart and “Who’s number one? The Customer!!!” Many of their associates have bracelets that read WWSD - “What would Sam do?”
I find this type of corporate culture not only socially irresponsible, but damaging to overall growth and effectiveness. Don’t these execs feel manipulative? They are damaging the careers and futures of their employees. They are sucking the life and fun out of their work. The employees have become robots. In addition, how do you expect to come up with new creative ideas to outsmart your competition when everyone is a clone? I am still under the belief that 2 heads are smarter than 1. By the way, who do you think they are going to come to when they have a problem? To the head messiah of course. I hire people to relinquish responsibility and decision-making, not to increase it.
Call me crazy…
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