You gotta fight for your right to party

Leaders are mostly disagreeable, determined to crush the competition, and when you urge them to reevaluate their strategy, that’s what you become. You have to stand your ground. Studies have shown that successful projects are associated with the combativeness of the managers.

Steve Jobs had lots of arguments for why the iPhone will not work. The managers accepted them but challanged him: If Apple made a phone, how beautiful and elegant could it be? They also used the competition: Wouldn’t there be a Windows phone eventually? It took months of debates and demos before Jobs was convinced.