Steve Jobs – Abraham Lincoln – Adam Grant
Most people will be familiar with the names of Steve Jobs and Abraham Lincoln. Not everyone will recognize the name of Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist who is the youngest tenured professor at the esteemed Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also an author, a father, husband, son, grandson, friend, and fellow traveler on this brief journey of life. Dr. Grant was recently featured on the NPR program On Being with its host Krista Tippett. It seems as if he was one of those children whom the Buddhist might claim had lived many lifetimes and was thus able, even as a child, to appreciate that there was something very special to be learned from both sets of grandparents who gave generously of their love. On the other hand, when he talks about other humans as takers, givers, or matchers he can sound very academic and as if his heart finds it difficult to accept that those who do feel or believe that it is safe to love may spend much of their energy attempting to find some way of filling that void and/or pushing away others. At other times when listening to him he seems able to accept that even the person who appears to be only a taker can be found giving to others in some ways. In my personal experience and, certainly, in the movie or television portrayal of the mob boss who may find it easy to kill others, one will find a fierce love and devotion to his family. On the other hand, if one does not behave in a way which fits the definition of family, he may not be able to access his heart.
Dr. Grant quotes something the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, said in the final paragraph of his first inaugural address: “I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
This quote probably resonated with me because I am a firm believer that we humans are, by nature, essentially good. At the same time I think that (1) many factors can affect the ability of our human brain to create a cogent thought and (2) we humans are enormously protective when we become convinced at a conscious or unconscious level that it is unsafe to allow others close enough to love us because they might, in the end, hurt us.
This thought process followed my seeing the movie Steve Jobs. Aaron Sorkin, the writer, Danny Boyle, the director, Michael Fassbender, the actor, and numerous others combined their talents and skills to create a movie about this man who has fascinated millions of people in the world. He is known for his amazing ability to envision a future which we are now living – a future which for many of us has the personal computer as its core – a seeming ability to focus on a goal no matter who it hurt or discarded, and what I understand as his fear of emotional closeness. I am not sure if, in the last phase of his life, he would have agreed or disagreed with the later part of this statement. Certainly on the cognitive level he loved his parents and would get angry if anyone called them his adoptive parents.
Most of us know Steve Jobs as the visionary who was one of the co-founders, along with Steve Woznick and Ronald Wayne, of the computer on which I am typing – Apple Macbook – and the phone I am using – iPhone. He was known as an amazing visionary; a man who was committed to giving all people the wonderful gift of the personal computer which would eventually connect to something called the internet.
Steve Jobs was not what Dr. Grant would call as taker although he did seem, at times, to use people as objects with little concern about who they were emotionally. He did not fit Dr. Grant’s definition of a taker as someone who is “kissing up and kicking down.” We have all seen and probably experienced that person who so desperately needs/wants power or at least the acknowledgement of the boss or higher up that his or her entire focus seems to be on pleasing that upper level person that they will literally, if necessary, kiss the feet (or other body parts) of the higher up while kicking their co-worker out of the way of being recognized or noticed. They can be exceptionally cruel. They are the people who the psychologist, Maslow, would describe as existing on the lower rung of the developmental pyramid. Maslow maintained that those of us living at that level on the pyramid do not have the luxury of considering the needs of others or seeing the common human connection of the other. He or she does not even care about the higher up and, if given the chance, will kick them out of the way of their way to advancement and recognition. Power, money, status, the corner office is their addiction- what they hope will finally establish their worthwhileness.
That was not Steve Jobs although it might appear that his single-minded focus came from the same emotional or psychological need to prove himself.
As I watched Michael Fassbender in the role of Steve Jobs, I wanted to alternately shake some sense into him, to hug him, and tell him that he can both love and follow his vision. So much about his ability to envision the potential of a personal computer was admirable. One needs the ability to dream or envision the impossible – an ability which few of us possess to that extent. Yet the energy he spends avoiding his heart also delays the achievement of his dream. He not only needs to hold fast to the vision but he needs to take all the credit, be better than, keep the Apple a close system (his system), and alternately push away keep those he needed close. This is especially evident in his relationship with his daughter, Lisa. There are moments when it seems as if his heart involuntarily pops open for a second only to quickly close again.
In so many ways he is a taker and yet he is one of those to whom I am grateful and who I want to love and who, for moments in the movie, find easy to love.
Dr. Grant would probably label Steve Jobs, on a personal level, as a taker who occasionally is a giver. He is certainly not a matcher. Matchers are those who take their cue from the larger group. If others in their group are takers they will get sucked into being takers also, If, on the other hand, the larger groups are givers then the matcher will find themselves being drawn into that behavioral pattern. The matchers do not lead. They are somewhere between the givers and the takers developmentally.
When President Lincoln talks about the better angels of our nature he is talking about the part of us who are the grandparents from whom Dr. Grant learned from at an early nature. It is that part of us which can relax with just being the humans that we are – warts and all – and who can then afford to give. The better angels of our nature know that we have to fill up our emotional, spiritual, physical, and nutritional gas tanks before we give to others. The better angels of our nature know that we are at our most creative selves when we are present just to love and not focused on proving our worth or earning another star. As much of a visionary as Steve Jobs was just imagine what he could have accomplished had he been free of the twin demons of fear and the need to prove himself.
Some of Dr. Grant’s research seems to validate that we humans are at our best when we are not worried about climbing a success ladder but able to focus on being very intentional about giving. I would use the word loving interchangeably with the word giving.
Another Sunday and another step in appreciating all I have to learn from the Grants, Lincolns, Jobs and Aaron Sorkins of this world. I think Aaron Sorkin could easily have written this blog. In fact, I am sure he could have said it more succinctly and more eloquently. Still. …
For today I will see if I can contact the better angels of my nature and in so doing connect with the better angels of all those with whom I come into contact today.
Written October 25, 2015
Most people will be familiar with the names of Steve Jobs and Abraham Lincoln. Not everyone will recognize the name of Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist who is the youngest tenured professor at the esteemed Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also an author, a father, husband, son, grandson, friend, and fellow traveler on this brief journey of life. Dr. Grant was recently featured on the NPR program On Being with its host Krista Tippett. It seems as if he was one of those children whom the Buddhist might claim had lived many lifetimes and was thus able, even as a child, to appreciate that there was something very special to be learned from both sets of grandparents who gave generously of their love. On the other hand, when he talks about other humans as takers, givers, or matchers he can sound very academic and as if his heart finds it difficult to accept that those who do feel or believe that it is safe to love may spend much of their energy attempting to find some way of filling that void and/or pushing away others. At other times when listening to him he seems able to accept that even the person who appears to be only a taker can be found giving to others in some ways. In my personal experience and, certainly, in the movie or television portrayal of the mob boss who may find it easy to kill others, one will find a fierce love and devotion to his family. On the other hand, if one does not behave in a way which fits the definition of family, he may not be able to access his heart.
Dr. Grant quotes something the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, said in the final paragraph of his first inaugural address: “I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
This quote probably resonated with me because I am a firm believer that we humans are, by nature, essentially good. At the same time I think that (1) many factors can affect the ability of our human brain to create a cogent thought and (2) we humans are enormously protective when we become convinced at a conscious or unconscious level that it is unsafe to allow others close enough to love us because they might, in the end, hurt us.
This thought process followed my seeing the movie Steve Jobs. Aaron Sorkin, the writer, Danny Boyle, the director, Michael Fassbender, the actor, and numerous others combined their talents and skills to create a movie about this man who has fascinated millions of people in the world. He is known for his amazing ability to envision a future which we are now living – a future which for many of us has the personal computer as its core – a seeming ability to focus on a goal no matter who it hurt or discarded, and what I understand as his fear of emotional closeness. I am not sure if, in the last phase of his life, he would have agreed or disagreed with the later part of this statement. Certainly on the cognitive level he loved his parents and would get angry if anyone called them his adoptive parents.
Most of us know Steve Jobs as the visionary who was one of the co-founders, along with Steve Woznick and Ronald Wayne, of the computer on which I am typing – Apple Macbook – and the phone I am using – iPhone. He was known as an amazing visionary; a man who was committed to giving all people the wonderful gift of the personal computer which would eventually connect to something called the internet.
Steve Jobs was not what Dr. Grant would call as taker although he did seem, at times, to use people as objects with little concern about who they were emotionally. He did not fit Dr. Grant’s definition of a taker as someone who is “kissing up and kicking down.” We have all seen and probably experienced that person who so desperately needs/wants power or at least the acknowledgement of the boss or higher up that his or her entire focus seems to be on pleasing that upper level person that they will literally, if necessary, kiss the feet (or other body parts) of the higher up while kicking their co-worker out of the way of being recognized or noticed. They can be exceptionally cruel. They are the people who the psychologist, Maslow, would describe as existing on the lower rung of the developmental pyramid. Maslow maintained that those of us living at that level on the pyramid do not have the luxury of considering the needs of others or seeing the common human connection of the other. He or she does not even care about the higher up and, if given the chance, will kick them out of the way of their way to advancement and recognition. Power, money, status, the corner office is their addiction- what they hope will finally establish their worthwhileness.
That was not Steve Jobs although it might appear that his single-minded focus came from the same emotional or psychological need to prove himself.
As I watched Michael Fassbender in the role of Steve Jobs, I wanted to alternately shake some sense into him, to hug him, and tell him that he can both love and follow his vision. So much about his ability to envision the potential of a personal computer was admirable. One needs the ability to dream or envision the impossible – an ability which few of us possess to that extent. Yet the energy he spends avoiding his heart also delays the achievement of his dream. He not only needs to hold fast to the vision but he needs to take all the credit, be better than, keep the Apple a close system (his system), and alternately push away keep those he needed close. This is especially evident in his relationship with his daughter, Lisa. There are moments when it seems as if his heart involuntarily pops open for a second only to quickly close again.
In so many ways he is a taker and yet he is one of those to whom I am grateful and who I want to love and who, for moments in the movie, find easy to love.
Dr. Grant would probably label Steve Jobs, on a personal level, as a taker who occasionally is a giver. He is certainly not a matcher. Matchers are those who take their cue from the larger group. If others in their group are takers they will get sucked into being takers also, If, on the other hand, the larger groups are givers then the matcher will find themselves being drawn into that behavioral pattern. The matchers do not lead. They are somewhere between the givers and the takers developmentally.
When President Lincoln talks about the better angels of our nature he is talking about the part of us who are the grandparents from whom Dr. Grant learned from at an early nature. It is that part of us which can relax with just being the humans that we are – warts and all – and who can then afford to give. The better angels of our nature know that we have to fill up our emotional, spiritual, physical, and nutritional gas tanks before we give to others. The better angels of our nature know that we are at our most creative selves when we are present just to love and not focused on proving our worth or earning another star. As much of a visionary as Steve Jobs was just imagine what he could have accomplished had he been free of the twin demons of fear and the need to prove himself.
Some of Dr. Grant’s research seems to validate that we humans are at our best when we are not worried about climbing a success ladder but able to focus on being very intentional about giving. I would use the word loving interchangeably with the word giving.
Another Sunday and another step in appreciating all I have to learn from the Grants, Lincolns, Jobs and Aaron Sorkins of this world. I think Aaron Sorkin could easily have written this blog. In fact, I am sure he could have said it more succinctly and more eloquently. Still. …
For today I will see if I can contact the better angels of my nature and in so doing connect with the better angels of all those with whom I come into contact today.
Written October 25, 2015
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