Would you have wanted to have dinner with Vincent Van Gogh? Probably. Would you want to have dinner with him three nights a week every week for a year. Not if you knew his personality.
The genius had notorious mood swings, was prone to sudden anger & depression & saw the world in ways we love now in his pictures but seemed as crazy as did he to the late 19th century French society he occupied.
The 85/15 rule works like this. If Van Gogh generates genius work 15% of the time can we put up with the 85% of the time he is intolerable?
You & I see it everyday in healthcare. The surgeon that is a genius at doing rare surgeries also loses his temper & throws instruments at any nurse that hands them the wrong one. You have got to be spectacular to get away with that kind of behavior in today's world.
Steve Jobs is a perfect example of the 85/15 rule. Jobs' genius literally changed the world. Apple is the richest company on earth and Apple products are used by billions. It all started, and was built, from the mind of a single individual. Yet, by all accounts, Jobs was incredibly difficult to work with.
Do you love your spouse or your friend enough to put up with whatever percent of his or her behavior you cannot stand? That is relationship's ultimate question based a strange equation that mixes logic with something that has no logic: Love.
-Erie Chapman
-Vincent Van Gogh, Self Portrait (1887)
