The Day Steve Jobs Bit My Head Off
The September 12 lead headline on CNN screamed, “Solar Storm Begins” and I was immediately transported back to the absolute worst day of my professional career. The day Steve Jobs really let me have it.
But before I dive into the story, let me paint the picture for you.
After college I fell in love with computers. In particular the Mac (we called it Macintosh back then). My degree from UCLA had been in philosophy, the economy wasn’t great, and it was particularly bad for liberal arts majors. Fortunately, computers provided a way forward with a series of jobs as a computer programmer.
As a member of the Los Angeles Macintosh Group, I was exposed to, and soon developed a deep interest in the then emerging technology we called Desktop Publishing. I had my Mac, my LaserWriter, PageMaker software and a gazillion fonts. The thought leader in the computers in publishing world back then was Jonathan Seybold, who had several publications and held bi-annual conferences and trade shows for the computer publishing industry.
Fortunately, I also had a connection into Seybold Seminars and soon landed my dream job where I was in charge of programming an attendee registration system, covering Apple Computer as the beat reporter (yeah!) and being in charge of speaker presentations for the event. I had struck gold. I was dealing with all the leaders of the industry: the top executives from Apple, Adobe, Sun Microsystems, Aldus and many more. Hog heaven? Yep!
March 13, 1989 was the opening session of my first Seybold Seminars conference in San Francisco. I was in charge of speakers, their presentations, and their audio-video needs. I had stayed up much of the night with the A/V contractors checking and rechecking that everything was working and going through dress rehearsals with the keynote speakers.
Back then, computer projectors weren’t really used for conferences, so the speakers all had slides. The A/V team had advised me that we should use remote control slide changers as they were very reliable and allowed the speaker to walk around on stage unhindered by cables. It sounded like the right call to me, so I agreed.
First speaker to the podium? Steve Jobs, CEO of NeXT Computer. Creator of the computer that I loved. My hero.
Steve got up on stage and started giving his presentation. The slide changer which had worked perfectly all night started acting erratically, then it stopped working altogether. Being impatient, he started complaining out into the audience. In frustration, he left the stage and walked over to Jonathan Seybold who was sitting in the front row. During this time I was frantically asking the A/V team what was going on over our headsets. Someone said, “Sunspots. There is a solar storm going on which is interrupting radio-frequency communications.”
Jonathan got on his headset and asked me what was going on. “There is a solar storm going on which is interrupting radio-frequency communications,” I said.
Steve got back up on stage and looked out into an audience of more than 2,000 attendees, and said, “I am told by Jonathan that this remote control isn’t working due to sunspot activities. I am sorry, I cannot accept that answer. Do you find it acceptable?”
Then he continued: “Jonathan tells me that Greg Stern is responsible for this. Greg, I know you are in this room somewhere. You are responsible for this not working and it is unacceptable.”
My face flushed, my heart raced, my stomach churned. You know how people talk about having moments when their entire lives flash in front of them? I had that moment.
But I had no time to beat myself up. It was a live event. I immediately created a plan B. I told a couple of A/V staff to place themselves along with their headsets around the stage, one behind and the other off to the side, glue their eyes to Steve’s fingers and then tell us the second he pushed the button so we could manually advance the slides. That seemed to work and the rest of the keynotes went off without a hitch.
That night, after the conference attendees went home, I had the AV techs put in wired controls. Two of them. Just in case. And I never allowed those wireless remotes ever again.
The next day the news was filled with reports of radio frequency interference interrupting telecommunications, garage doors opening and closing, power transmission lines going down. It didn’t matter. I was sure I would be fired. Jonathan wouldn’t talk to me or even look at me for a couple weeks after.
Somehow, I kept the job and continued in various roles for the next 9 years. In fact after Seybold Seminars was sold to Ziff-Davis, I was eventually promoted to vice president and general manager running the Seybold organization.
Still, the experience was traumatic enough to have had a lasting impact in my career ever since. I learned some key lessons that have served me well.
Lesson #1: Have a Plan
After that experience I decided that I couldn’t afford to ever make another big mistake (Hah! Good luck with that, Greg.). I became obsessive about having every detail planned out and captured in what were then these huge notebooks that contained all the details for the event.
While trying to control every variable for anything in your professional or personal life is a fools errand, I did eventually come to the conclusion that it is a heck of a lot easier to adjust a plan mid-stream then to make things up as you go along. In fact over the years working for different organizations, I have been consistently amazed at how much of business is run by seat-of-the-pants. In very mature businesses where the variables are well understood, that works. At any other point in business life cycles, it does not. Unless you are lucky. Very lucky.
This does not mean you have to follow your plan religiously. In fact that too is a formula for failure. The trick is constantly measuring what is actually happening versus what you expected to happen and adjusting accordingly. But you still have to have a plan.
Once I left the events business for the Internet and high tech businesses, taking on various product management leadership roles, I learned that my project managers were my most valuable employees. They were the keepers of the plan and the difference a good project manager could make with the output and efficiency of a team was not only measurable, it was palpable.
Lesson #2: Have a Plan B
In the events business a Plan B meant redundancy. After that experience I always had backup systems. We always ran two cables in case one went out. When we moved to video projectors several years later, I always had a backup project ready to be plugged at a moments notice if the one in use went out.
After the events business, as a product manager it meant thinking through all the various options so if things did not work as expected, I always had several alternative plans in the backlog or, at the very least, had thought things through and had a solid idea in my head what I would do next.
Lesson #3: Own Your Mistakes
Looking back on it I suspect that one of the things that kept me from being fired is that I have never been afraid to raise my hand and take responsibility for my actions or decisions (though my eldest points out that this happened only 6 weeks before he was born and so maybe they didn't have the heart to fire me!). In this case I could have easily placed blame. I knew nothing about sun spots or RF interference and even if I had known that we were going to experience a huge solar storm, I would not have not tied that to the possibility that our remote control slide changers wouldn't work. Clearly the A/V team knew about it, because the moment that the problem started, they correctly diagnosed what was going on, but still, Steve was right. I was in charge of speaker support and the A/V, and it was ultimately my responsibility, which I stepped forward and accepted.
Over the years I have noticed that taking responsibility for my own actions (or at times lack of) has been one of the most powerful communication devices I have. As soon as finger pointing starts, all kinds of bad behavior begins to emerge and communication inside and between teams breaks down into mistrust. This is doubly true when you are in management. Your team knows darn well when you have mucked it up. Standing up and admitting mistakes allows a healthy dialog of what worked, what didn't and what the next steps are. Trust me on this one. Try it out for yourself. I guarantee that it works.
The Biggest Lesson of All
Being humiliated in front of 2,000 people was traumatic; 25 years later I still feel embarrassed. But even the biggest mistakes can be valuable learning opportunities if you are open to the teachings. After that experience, I became much more deliberate in how I did everything in business. I do my very best to always keep things organized and to have a plan, even though the fast pace of business and its fire drills can and do drive me off course. But in the end, what I learned on March 13, 1989, and how it changed me has served me well. Thanks, Steve!
