9 ms·

I feel it's important to emphasise this: we have nothing to suggest whether it was because the software team was forced to ship early, because Forstall didn't a

by 46Bit 14y ago

I feel it's important to emphasise this: we have nothing to suggest whether it was because the software team was forced to ship early, because Forstall didn't agree it was so far behind Maps, or other disagreements. Don't blame Forstall for not signing the letter if you don't know the cockup was his fault.

cremnob 14y ago
I'm more inclined to blame Forstall, especially after reading this feature on him by Businessweek. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/scott-forstall-the-sorcerers-apprentice-at-apple-10122011.html http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/scott-forstall-the-sorc...
majormajor 14y ago
It's been quoted to death, but I feel Jobs was right on the money when he said that at the executive level, there's no "it's not my fault." It was at the very least his responsibility, and this story paints him as not accepting that responsibility. That doesn't look good. If the story is true, I'd consider it a big enough disagreement to remove someone over.
- phaus 14y ago
  You can be an executive and still be in a situation where a higher ranking executive can override you even when you are the domain expert and they aren't. I don't know if that's what happened here or not, but if it did, then there is in fact such thing as "it's not my fault." If Steve Jobs was talking about himself when he made that statement, then it's spot on. He micromanaged the shit out of that company and nearly always got his way. Fortunately, he did a hell of a job. If he screwed up though, he would have had not a single person to blame but himself, because he personally called most of the shots. While I haven't been an executive at a billion dollar company, I have a good amount of leadership experience from my time in the military. I always try to be blatantly honest with myself and others. If I personally fuck something up, I tend to immediately own up to it and propose a solution. However, there have been a few very rare occasions where I've either had myself and my team thrown under the bus for something that was beyond our control, or failed to complete a task because it was simply impossible to achieve under the given deadline. Only a coward would let someone place undeserved blame on himself or his subordinates.
  - SHOwnsYou 14y ago
    There is never it's not my fault --- unless you're not attached to your job. Accepting responsibility for your division, even if you personally did nothing wrong, is part of the territory. If you work with people that constantly offer excuses, even if they are "I was overruled", it is an awful work experience. Imagine you have to team up with that guy to code something and as soon as it goes wrong, he jumps to blame you. Even if it is entirely you're fault (you should claim it yourself, not be called out by a coworker), he still was working on the project. You can't expect to get anywhere by denying your involvement in toxic software that you are clearly involved in.
    - phaus 14y ago
      There is a difference between accepting responsibility for the actions of your subordinates/ your own actions and accepting blame for the failures of one of your superiors who stepped out of his area of responsibility and into yours just to override you on something that he had no business doing. If your leader sets you up for failure, the same logic you are using to assign the blame to yourself assigns the blame to him. There is an even larger difference between being a person who is capable of recognizing when their employer is wrongfully blaming something on them and the person who constantly blames things on other people. I don't know if applies in this situation or not. For all I know this guy could have personally written bad code for maps. The point is, universal statements such as "there is never it's not my fault at the executive level" are just plain false. It is an executive's fault if his subordinates do shitty work, but if the executive's boss ordered something that was impossible to accomplish with a given set of time, manpower, and resources then there is a good possibility that it isn't his fault. He might have to take the fall for it, but at the end of the day if that's what happened, then he knows he did the best he could and therefore shouldn't give a shit what anyone else thinks. I love my job, I also loved having the opportunity to provide leadership and guidance for others. It is because of the love I had for my job that I would accept responsibility only for the things that are actually my fault(which includes the actions of my subordinates.) I understand that as a supervisor there's always the chance that I would get fired, demoted, or otherwise punished for a superior's mistakes, but that doesn't make it my fault or responsibility unless I actually made a mistake. Steve Jobs can say "there is no it's not my fault" because at Apple, the buck stopped with him. I don't recall hearing anyone ever telling Steve Jobs that he couldn't do something, or overriding his design decisions. For lower levels of leadership, such as I experienced, there were about 50 different people who would constantly tell me what to do, even though only one person was actually tasked with doing so. Sometimes, my orders were poorly thought out. Sometimes they even contradicted orders given by other people. In situations like these, as I stated before, only a coward would accept the blame without evaluating the specific situation beforehand.
- cbsmith 14y ago
  There is a big difference between refusing to apologize and "it's not my fault".
- dasil003 14y ago
  > Jobs was right on the money when he said that at the executive level, there's no "it's not my fault." I see the truth in that, but you have to admit Jobs was probably the person for whom it was easiest to make this admonition.
objclxt 14y ago
"Don't blame Forstall for not signing the letter if you don't know the cockup was his fault" Sometimes you have to take the fall for something that's not your fault. This is particularly true at high levels of management - or rather, it should be. It doesn't matter whether it was his personal fault - Scott Forstall was in charge of iOS, full stop. iOS was his remit, maps included.
PeterisP 14y ago
How can a cockup in his area be somehow not his responsibility? For any possible contributing cause - number and expertise people working on the product, handling of acquisitions in the sector, strategic deals with other companies and partners involved, the marketing-built expectations of consumers, the PR followup of the maps - as a senior VP, it is his direct duty to make sure that stuff there happens in a favorable way and take responsibility for whatever happened. Even if a major reason is disagreements with CEO or board or other VP's - it is still clearly his responsibility to solve those disagreements and ensure that they don't harm results. As in the Jobs' citation, somewhere between the janitor and his position that ceases to be a valid excuse.

by 46Bit 14y ago

cremnob 14y ago

I'm more inclined to blame Forstall, especially after reading this feature on him by Businessweek. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/scott-forstall-the-sorcerers-apprentice-at-apple-10122011.html http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/scott-forstall-the-sorc...

majormajor 14y ago

It's been quoted to death, but I feel Jobs was right on the money when he said that at the executive level, there's no "it's not my fault." It was at the very least his responsibility, and this story paints him as not accepting that responsibility. That doesn't look good. If the story is true, I'd consider it a big enough disagreement to remove someone over.

phaus 14y ago
You can be an executive and still be in a situation where a higher ranking executive can override you even when you are the domain expert and they aren't. I don't know if that's what happened here or not, but if it did, then there is in fact such thing as "it's not my fault." If Steve Jobs was talking about himself when he made that statement, then it's spot on. He micromanaged the shit out of that company and nearly always got his way. Fortunately, he did a hell of a job. If he screwed up though, he would have had not a single person to blame but himself, because he personally called most of the shots. While I haven't been an executive at a billion dollar company, I have a good amount of leadership experience from my time in the military. I always try to be blatantly honest with myself and others. If I personally fuck something up, I tend to immediately own up to it and propose a solution. However, there have been a few very rare occasions where I've either had myself and my team thrown under the bus for something that was beyond our control, or failed to complete a task because it was simply impossible to achieve under the given deadline. Only a coward would let someone place undeserved blame on himself or his subordinates.
- SHOwnsYou 14y ago
  There is never it's not my fault --- unless you're not attached to your job. Accepting responsibility for your division, even if you personally did nothing wrong, is part of the territory. If you work with people that constantly offer excuses, even if they are "I was overruled", it is an awful work experience. Imagine you have to team up with that guy to code something and as soon as it goes wrong, he jumps to blame you. Even if it is entirely you're fault (you should claim it yourself, not be called out by a coworker), he still was working on the project. You can't expect to get anywhere by denying your involvement in toxic software that you are clearly involved in.
  - phaus 14y ago
    There is a difference between accepting responsibility for the actions of your subordinates/ your own actions and accepting blame for the failures of one of your superiors who stepped out of his area of responsibility and into yours just to override you on something that he had no business doing. If your leader sets you up for failure, the same logic you are using to assign the blame to yourself assigns the blame to him. There is an even larger difference between being a person who is capable of recognizing when their employer is wrongfully blaming something on them and the person who constantly blames things on other people. I don't know if applies in this situation or not. For all I know this guy could have personally written bad code for maps. The point is, universal statements such as "there is never it's not my fault at the executive level" are just plain false. It is an executive's fault if his subordinates do shitty work, but if the executive's boss ordered something that was impossible to accomplish with a given set of time, manpower, and resources then there is a good possibility that it isn't his fault. He might have to take the fall for it, but at the end of the day if that's what happened, then he knows he did the best he could and therefore shouldn't give a shit what anyone else thinks. I love my job, I also loved having the opportunity to provide leadership and guidance for others. It is because of the love I had for my job that I would accept responsibility only for the things that are actually my fault(which includes the actions of my subordinates.) I understand that as a supervisor there's always the chance that I would get fired, demoted, or otherwise punished for a superior's mistakes, but that doesn't make it my fault or responsibility unless I actually made a mistake. Steve Jobs can say "there is no it's not my fault" because at Apple, the buck stopped with him. I don't recall hearing anyone ever telling Steve Jobs that he couldn't do something, or overriding his design decisions. For lower levels of leadership, such as I experienced, there were about 50 different people who would constantly tell me what to do, even though only one person was actually tasked with doing so. Sometimes, my orders were poorly thought out. Sometimes they even contradicted orders given by other people. In situations like these, as I stated before, only a coward would accept the blame without evaluating the specific situation beforehand.
cbsmith 14y ago
There is a big difference between refusing to apologize and "it's not my fault".
dasil003 14y ago
> Jobs was right on the money when he said that at the executive level, there's no "it's not my fault." I see the truth in that, but you have to admit Jobs was probably the person for whom it was easiest to make this admonition.

objclxt 14y ago

"Don't blame Forstall for not signing the letter if you don't know the cockup was his fault" Sometimes you have to take the fall for something that's not your fault. This is particularly true at high levels of management - or rather, it should be. It doesn't matter whether it was his personal fault - Scott Forstall was in charge of iOS, full stop. iOS was his remit, maps included.

PeterisP 14y ago

How can a cockup in his area be somehow not his responsibility? For any possible contributing cause - number and expertise people working on the product, handling of acquisitions in the sector, strategic deals with other companies and partners involved, the marketing-built expectations of consumers, the PR followup of the maps - as a senior VP, it is his direct duty to make sure that stuff there happens in a favorable way and take responsibility for whatever happened. Even if a major reason is disagreements with CEO or board or other VP's - it is still clearly his responsibility to solve those disagreements and ensure that they don't harm results. As in the Jobs' citation, somewhere between the janitor and his position that ceases to be a valid excuse.