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Somewhat related: One thing that's always somewhat of a surprise to me is that as genius as a marketer as he was, Steve Jobs wasn't terribly eloquent. It's som
by kyro 14y ago
Somewhat related:
One thing that's always somewhat of a surprise to me is that as genius as a marketer as he was, Steve Jobs wasn't terribly eloquent. It's something I first noticed when watching his Stanford speech years ago and continued to pick up on throughut his various keynote addresses and leaked emails like the one in the linked document. His sentence structure was typically one-dimensional and vocabulary simple, which is probably why he was such an effective salesman -- he was easy to understand.
Being a strong, effective leader usually conjures up images of people who are prolific writers and great orators, or Bill Clinton-type masters of persuasion, but Steve wasn't any of that.
- bad_user 14y agoI'm not sure what you think of when you say "eloquent". I watched the Standford speech and other talks of him and the thing that always struck me was how eloquent and persuasive he was. Also, great orators do use a simple vocabulary. Bill Clinton is not necessarily the right example, because he's a politician and bullshiting people with fancy words and long speeches are part of the job description.
- kyro 14y agoEloquence in terms of mastery over the English language. Steve definitely was persuasive, but not because of expansive vocabulary, carefully crafted sentences or even logical arguments. His passion conveyed much more meaningful messages, and actually, it's likely that his simple and direct manner of speech helped those messages come through with clarity.
- DougBTX 14y agoHow can you tell that he didn't carefully craft simple and direct speech to convey his passion with clarity? It's tricky to pin down cause and effect, but since so many people understood his passion through his use of English, I'd be wary of saying he didn't have it mastered.
- jimbokun 14y agoClinton's persuasive genius was on display in the last Democratic National Convention where he made clear what Obama had achieved, and the tactics the Republicans were using to try to stop him, in very clear, simple language everyone could understand. I think Clinton and Jobs are more alike than different, in that respect.
- bad_user 14y agoI never listened to that speech, but as I was saying, great orators wrap powerful messages in a simple and clear language. And anybody that tried delivering speeches to an audience this way knows how difficult it can be.
- godDLL 14y agoI think he meant `not fancy`. Fancy speech is not the same as effective speech; rather, I'd say effective speaking is very much in the realm of eloquence.
- mikeash 14y agoDon't confuse complicated speech with eloquence. Simple words and sentences can be tremendously eloquent when used properly. Being easy to understand is, after all, the whole point.
- jimbokun 14y agoMy take after reading the two emails, was how many words it took for Colligan express himself, compared to how succinctly Jobs was able to make his position understood. I find the latter approach more eloquent (disregarding how distasteful the actual content was).
- alanctgardner2 14y agoThe thing is, I read Colligan's response as polite (even not counting for content). If I was dealing with Steve Jobs and I received an email as terse as his reply, I would be disinclined to deal with him. This is probably just my personal sensibility, not being a cut-throat business guy.
- snowwrestler 14y agoEloquence is overrated; what is very hard to do is clear, concise communication. Steve Jobs was a master of that, and also a master of persuasion--not a coincidence. Colligan's email was typical business-speak; about twice as long as it needed to be and full of useless fluff. It's much harder to write like Hemingway than George R. R. Martin. Most people have to revise and rewrite several times to get their word count down and deliver a focused, clear message.
- cglee 14y agoI had the opposite feeling. Jobs was direct, concise and wrote in an unmistakable way. Colligan was writing "for the record" and used a lot of empty flowery language.
- pjungwir 14y agoThe orators in ancient Greece and Rome had a taxonomy of oratorical styles, from plain to ornate, and recognized that you could be successful in any style, and that certain styles were better suited to certain contexts. Others are saying that the purpose of oratory is to communicate, but I would say the purpose of oratory is to persuade. Cicero has some complicated sentence structure, but if you can follow it, it delights the mind and just gets your blood moving. So perhaps what you're saying is that Jobs was more like Lysias than Antiphon.
- postnihilism 14y ago"I'm sure you realize the asymmetry in the financial resources of our respective companies when you say: "We will both just end up paying a lot of lawyers a lot of money." Sounds eloquent to me.