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Randall...well said. I don't doubt that Jason has a 'heart of gold'. I tend to find that people that are extremely passionate about things, do/say incendiary things that tend to attract attention (both good and bad).

I respect him for having the balls to say what he really thinks. Not many people do. However, I don't believe that he really believes everything he says. I think he has reached the point where he realizes the pay off (lots of attention), that it becomes naturally for everything he says to come out like that.

I am sure that many people would be pushed, but you can push people (and get the most out of them) without being a tyrant.

For instance, I played the violin for many years (save the 'he is a pussy for playing the violin' comments...kthnxbi) and had several teachers. I had a mix...some that were clearly doing it for just a paycheck (not pushing me enough), others that pushed me tyranically (a la Calacanis style) that I rebelled against and didn't perform like I knew I could, and my last one that was absolutely amazing at pushing me to leaps and bounds in a much shorter time than I had ever thought I could reach. So much so, that even though I spent an aggregate of 6 or 7 years with the first 2 or 3 and only progressed let's say '2 or 3' levels, with the last, in the space of 2 years, I progressed 6 or 7 levels and actually became a teacher myself - learning those same techniques of learning how people learn and how to get the best out of each individual and pushing them to achieve their best using a mechanism that will work with them.

So I say that to say, that every manager/leader wants the best out of their people. Some take a blanket approach (like Jason seems to have done) that, in my opinion, don't work in the long-run and in aggregate...and more importantly would never work for me. Hence the reason for my blog post.



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