By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge


Yesterday I came across what I felt to be a provocatively brilliant quote by Elon Musk which I subsequently posted into my LinkedIn Update and Facebook Status feeds.

"The reason I haven't taken SpaceX public is the goals of SpaceX are very long-term, which is to establish a city on Mars."
-- Elon Musk

The next day, I awoke to find this little gem of a comment from my friend Chikako Uchinami of synopsis.TODAY below it:

"Elon is instructive of the principle of Divine Right.
He's not always right, but when he is he is the most interesting man in the world.
You can't inherit Divine Right- you take it."

-- Chikako Uchinami

Besides being incredibly insightful, Chikako brilliantly articulated the concept and application Divine Right

Divine Right.

And that's what it is. 

It 's not given. It can only be taken. The right can only be asserted.

Think about the power of those statements. 

Now think about the power and effectiveness of any leader (including you) who not only understands but lays claim to and assertively wields Divine Right.

By Mike Rogers, MarketingJapan, Universal Vision Ltd., and Smart Research 
& James Santagata, Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge

TV as a Mirror of Society

I met the boss of the biggest international television network in the world the other day. He is a Canadian. He travels all over the world and, because he is in the TV business, he told me that one of his favorite things to do in every country was to judge by TV commercials what things were important to that particular society. 

Japan's TV commercials? Insurance for this or that; home sales; automobiles; financial instruments and plans; candy, cosmetics, fast food... Companies like Zurich, Sekisui, Kanebo.... Japanese commercials that soft sell and are emotive commercials.

I think that's right. 

He also told me that he was "astounded" by just how many over the counter drug medication commercials there were on US TV all the time. US TV commercials? Drugs, Cholesterol, Machismo ("my ding-a-ling is bigger than yours" commercials); fast food; commercials to make your dick hard, make it soft, put you to sleep, keep you awake, lower blood pressure, lose weight; not to mention commercials galore for people with extreme anxiety and panic attacks.

Oh, and don't forget the side effects disclaimers! Cholesterol, etc

Why is the USA this way? It wasn't that way 50 years ago, was it? 

Here's one piece of anecdotal evidence: Japan has its problems too, but here is something that will drop the jaws of all Americans... 

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge



"So, what, you think you're a minder read and can read minds, right?! Ha!"

I often find myself fielding this question although sometimes it's delivered in a tone of voice that conjures up images of an accusation such as "charlatan!" rather than a genuine question.

But that's okay, as it shows interest and engagement on the person asking it and once they allow me to explore a little more with them, they are usually hooked and have an "aha!" moment.

This most often occurs when I deliver the Psychological Jujutsu, Organizational Power Dynamics or Supercharged Sales training to my group classes or when I coach an individual. It seem that almost without fail, this occurs during the course of a particular exercise or coaching session when I'll cold read a person or situation or analyze a situation that is described to me and then "nail it" without ever having met the particular party in question and most often without ever having been completely privy to all facts or details surrounding the party or situation. 

Examples have included  individuals and situations such as the problematic office admin who went from threats of power harassment to suddenly gleefully resigning, the top salesperson who had a court order for the garnishment of his wages for payment to his former spouse and who decided to resign rather than have his money garnished to the problematic country manager who was quickly read and understood as being frightened of someone internally "taking" his job.

So the simple and honest answer to this question or perhaps the rejoinder to this accusation is, of course, I'm not a mind reader nor do I purport to be. And yet my results are there and they are what they are with them being more often than not extremely uncanny in their accuracy. 

The most important insight from my work and research that I try to impart to my students, clients and skeptics is that you don't need to be a mind reader to be accurate in your reading of a situation because in most cases the party in question through their actions, reactions and inactions almost to a tee loudly and graphically telegraphs exactly what they are thinking and how they are thinking as well as their intentions.

They also communicate this through both their acts of omission (including benign neglect and mindful tarpitting) as well as through  acts of commission. In some cases the acts maybe overt in nature and in other cases covert.

It matters not.

Sometimes, I'll wait to passively receive this silhouette and then begin to outline their profile, but more often than not I do as I advise all my students and clients -- make like sonar and make like radar by actively and continually pinging and painting your environment and targets.

It's that simple. 

And you should use  this daily until it becomes a root kit script -- one that requires no conscience deployment or utilization, and one that becomes as internalized, integrated and critical to your very survival as breathing.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge


Have you ever wondered why companies so often overpay for talent that just doesn't perform or worse negatively impacts the company's performance?

By the same token, have you ever wondered why companies seem to so often inadvertently or even consciously block, reject and trample Top Talent?

The fact is, the so-called War For Talent most often resembles a War On Talent.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge


Hats off to Sheryl Sandberg and her book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.

It's started a valuable conversation but until concrete actions are taken, that's all it is - a conversation, talk. 

And by concrete actions I mean focusing on understanding, developing and utilizing specific tools and strategies to accept the world as it is, and then to use these tools and strategies to create, mold and reframe a new more comfortable and productive reality. 

This training draws extensively from our Psychological Jujutsu training and High-Impact Leadership series to create a body of original material that is specifically tailored for women currently in or seeking leadership roles.

We delve deeply into the fine line separating the 4B's -- Bimbo, Babe, Bitch, Brilliant-Boss -- and more importantly we discuss exactly how to effectively place yourself and stay in the Brilliant-Boss category without triggering negative push backs, mismatches or attacks.

By understanding the impact and deeply embedded, yet invisible,  role that evolutionary psychology plays with regard to the organization and society's view of strong women leaders, we'll explore how to deftly avoid the many traps and pitfalls while learning how to push the correct buttons and trigger the proper scripts allowing women to lead an more effective, efficient, productive and satisfying work and home life.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge

It seems like the peddling of the old standby Myths & Memes is on the rise once again in the Valley. As this is often a lagging indicator of both the Valley's, and even the wider Tech Industry's financial state, it tells me that we're in a very frothy if not overheated market since people are now letting their hair down and apparently gleefully throwing themselves onto the politically correct bandwagon.  But they should be careful, lest they find themselves thrown beneath it. 

Still, it's my guess that whatever problems or disasters may rear their ugly heads in the future due to blind belief and adherence to these Myths & Memes, the folks most involved are betting that they'll be able to quickly paper over it with the waves and waves of cash that are flowing so freely now.

But not everyone believed let alone followed these Myths and Memes and amazingly, they didn't fail or turn into a pumpkin or a toad.

What a perfect example of a person who broke every one of these Myths and Memes?

Try Steve Jobs. Yep, Steve Jobs. And Apple Computer under his guidance during his second tour of duty.

The fact is, no one can deny that, under Steve Jobs, Apple was a smashing success. All the metrics are there: market cap, profits, amazing hit product after hit product. iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone. You name it.

Wow!

And for the record, I am by no means an Apple fan nor am I a Steve Jobs / Apple Computer apologist.  I'm simply a reality-based thinker and I call it the way it is, not the way I wish it were.

That said, I'm a very serious student of Steve Jobs and I'm not afraid to look at what really made him successful. I can tell you, it wasn't following the Valley Myth and Memes and it wasn't being politically correct.

In fact, Steve Jobs did the exact opposite of what most pundits and social engineers are preaching. And the reason it worked for Steve Jobs is because Steve Jobs and his communication style was perfectly aligned with the way the world and humans work.

What is most interesting, though perhaps very disconcerting to the social engineers among us, is how Steve Jobs did it.
We're told that if a person studies hard at the "right" schools, gets a "good" education and makes the "right" connections they'll be well positioned for success.

Beyond that we are told, especially in the Valley, that an organization will perform best when it is openly transparent (both internally and externally), when there is diversity, when there are women in senior leadership positions and when we have an open environment of respect and perhaps kumbayahism in the office.

Going even further, we are told that we should be investing and building all kinds of new tech that people have never seen. And by "new tech" I mean core tech, not making sexy cases, new form factors or tinkering with some incremental derivative product like the iPod.

And yet, if we look at Steve Jobs and his management style during his absolutely, amazing and record smashing second run we find something that is completely at odds with what the pundits say is necessary for success:

1. No diversity at Apple (as defined by the politically correct sense of skin pigmentation / reproductive organs).
2. No women in senior leadership positions (see also: Apple Vows To Find Women & Minorities For Board Directors).
3. No Indians in senior leadership positions (see: Why Indian presence in Apple's senior management level is next to nil).
4. Few minorities (see: Apple Facing Criticism About Diversity Changes Bylaws).
5. Steve Jobs didn't go to a "top" university.
6. Steve Jobs didn't even graduate from a four-year college.
7. Steve Jobs was not transparent. At best, he could be characterized as a benevolent dictator, at worst a tyrant.
8. Jobs/Apple was not open -- you leak new Apple products, you'd be hunted down & sued (see: Apple Sues To Stop Product Leaks).
9 Jobs/Apple could be downright nasty, even engaging in potentially illegal activity, if the "no poach" collusion allegations are borne out.
10. Steve Jobs even used his money to find a loophole in California vehicle code so that he wouldn't have to get license plates and had an apparent penchant for parking in the handicap spaces.

And yet again, while Steve Jobs just turned a blind eye to all of these supposed business and organizational "requirements" his results were phenomenal. Can we in any way argue with Steve Jobs' success? It seems that few prominent members of the Valley tech community question his success so I guess not.

Next time, we'll dig a bit deeper and explore why Steve Jobs was so successful, time and time again. The results may surprise you.

Lastly, as quick exercise, we should ask ourselves is Apple really lacking diversity? Or is and has Apple always been diverse but in a more mature manner, such as defining "diversity" with regard to value, thought patterns and productivity rather than with regard to skin pigments and reproductive organs?.

It can easily be argued that a man and women studying the same subject matter from Princeton (not to pick on any school) will be more alike than two men, one of which studied electrical engineering and the other who studied marketing at two different schools in two different states or countries.

Think about it. 
Think. Different.