When it comes to famous jerks, few can match Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Yes, he’s imaginative, persuasive and innovative, as you would expect from the guy who gave us both the Macintosh computer and the iPod, but he’s also arrogant, condescending, and nasty. Jobs is mentioned prominently in the book, The No Asshole Rule, and author Robert Sutton fondly recounts a reunion of 1,300 former Apple employees in 2003. “Even though Jobs didn’t attend, he was the main source of conversation, especially tales of his tirades and tantrums,” Sutton writes. “In one attendee’s words, ‘Everyone has their Steve-Jobs-the-asshole story.’ ”

Given Jobs’ reputation, it must have been a bit difficult for him to apologize earlier this week to Apple customers who were rightly upset when the price of the iPhone was cut by $200 only two months after the product was launched. As a story in The Washington Post put it: “Complaints like this prompted Jobs to offer his apologies in an open letter posted on Apple’s Web site—along with a $100 credit on Apple products to customers who bought the device at the old price. ‘We need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price,’ he wrote. ‘We apologize for disappointing some of you.’ ”

Say what you will about Jobs, but he responded to the mini-crisis—one that knocked some $11 billion off Apple’s market cap by one estimate—quickly and decisively. And, even if you don’t believe it, Jobs’ apology sounded a bit sincere and a tad contrite, which apparently is not his standard operating procedure.

There’s a lot of debate about whether this was a real act of contrition or just more iPhone marketing hype, but either way, the apology will likely help Jobs and Apple, a point we made here at Workforce Management in a story titled “The Art of the Apology.”  It quoted Atlanta-based attorney and consultant Stephen Paskoff, who showed how crucial it is for top management to lead the way in taking responsibility for mistakes and shortcomings, and offering apologies if necessary.

“Apologies can be a powerful tool for conflict resolution, but only if they’re part of a cultural change,” Paskoff said. “You need your corporate leaders to say, ‘If we make mistakes, we fix them. If someone says there’s a problem, you need to listen to what they have to say. And if you have a problem, you need to bring it up, because we’ll listen.”

Will an apology and a $100 credit on a new Apple product soothe the ruffled feathers of early iPhone buyers? Only time will tell, but the speed of  Jobs’ actions shows that when it comes to making things right, the combination of money and a quick apology (even if it does turn out to be thinly veiled marketing scheme) is a combination that’s hard to beat.

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