Steve Jobs was a hard man in many ways. He was demanding. He was unrelenting. He was both idolised [for what he achieved] and feared [for his piercing eyes and probing questions].
Jobs' demanded that people in meetings with him heard him say "simplify" that babble or leave this room and the campus. He would urge those who stayed in the room to get into the detail of the issue, the prototype before them, or the proposed future actions at Apple.
Most people like to waffle on, and on, about their stories. Of course they are either directly or indirectly at the centre of that monologue. These stories are often used to deflect the attention of those in the meeting from the details of the core issues on the agenda. This is the reason that meetings, events, workshops, interviews, etc are far too long to be useful.
Steve Jobs interrupted the flow of presentations to him by outside vendors and internals with his demand to "simplify". He never said "simplify": but, he often said "this is not suitable for Apple". Why is this so? Because the presenter could not convince Jobs that he, or she, was on top of the details about what works and what does not work at Apple. Those who did come prepared with the appropriate level of detail [working prototype or robust case] needed to make the proposal work; suddenly, find they must go deeper and deeper into the details in order to guarantee that this thing will remain robustness into the future.
One killer question for Steve Jobs just before they put on a major "show and tell" event that announced the roll out of Apple stores was "what if no one turns up?"
One killer question you could take with you into your next event, meeting, show-and-tell, etc is "what if no one here is actually listening to me right now?" What most people will do if they suspect that this is the case is to press on with more of the same of what has already failed. Some will even raise the pitch and volume of their voice in the hope that this will help them get the message through to those idle minds. However, those who seek to "simplify" everything they think, belief in, and do will just stop speaking.
Richard.
You can simplify your life by becoming a minimalist. For more about becoming a minimalist go to the homepage of my website at minimal-you.com
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