For this assignment, I am supposed
to write a well thought out blog discussing how my professional profile would
relate to an environment of a start-up tech company with Steve Jobs at the
helm. Not much thinking is required here
– I would probably not fit in very well at all.
It’s not that I wouldn’t want to be part of a new company with tons of
potential, especially when its founder has already helped create an amazing company;
I just think that my experience in the Navy has led me down a specific path
that isn’t conducive to being in a creative environment.
First, I could bring stability to
the company by “creating rules and structure for the organization and its
people.” When building a company from
the ground up, entire work processes and flow charts must be created to ensure
that the right people are informed and that lines of communication are open
across the different interfaces.
Although I haven’t had any experience in the business world, I have
created multiple shipboard regulations and step policies that helped my boat streamline
some of its processes. Per the debrief
with Tom, I have a very good balance of needing independence yet not
over-stepping my boundaries, I am highly goal oriented (which could also be a
bad thing if goals are not established for me), I am willing to take calculated
risks, and am a pretty good multitasker.
All of these traits would probably be an asset to a company looking for
a mid-level manager (which is where I see myself currently). With respect to the video, I really like his
mentality he states at the 12:00 mark.
Specifically, he states that he isn’t interested in the fact that they
failed last time; they aren’t going to fail this time. A leader must be able to move the team past
the failures and to have the re-focus on the current situation, something that
Jobs clearly did there and something I would respect in him.
On the flip side, I also had some
scores that would be detrimental to an organization that is creating new
technologies and is relying on my innovation.
My job in the Navy not only doesn’t provide for me to be creative, it
almost downright doesn’t want it (except when ship driving which is still an art
form). In the 11 years or so, I have
been trained to follow procedure – don’t get creative because you think you are
smarter than the books – if you think you know something the engineers that
designed the plant didn’t know, stop what you are doing and contact them for
support. This type of mentality is
essential in ensuring that nuclear plants are operated in a completely safe
manner (on a historical side note, it was exactly creativity that caused the
Chernobyl disaster when a couple of plant engineers decided they wanted to see
what would happen when they cut power to the reactor). This mentality has snuffed out what little
creativity I had before joining the Navy (I have been called many things in my
life but creative is not one of them).
Finally, and by no means the least of all of these statements, I am a
mechanical engineer that switched from electrical engineering specifically
because I couldn’t stand programming so the mere thought of me working as a
programmer almost makes me sick! Additionally,
in the course of my studies, I realized that I am much better at refining
current processes than creating new ones.
In
summary, I think for the most part I have found the niche that suits me!
On a
side note, something I really liked from the video was the way that Jobs goes
about creating the company from a company of the heart. This makes me recall week one of my first
MSLD class, MSLD 511. In that module, a
video talked about how truly great companies create mentalities first and then
go about producing products that fall under this mentality. For example, Jobs stated with Apple that they
wanted to create truly groundbreaking consumer products that will push
technology to its limits. He didn’t say
I want to create the best .mp3 player or the best smart phone – those products
are just the byproduct of his mentality.
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