Leading Apple With Steve Jobs: Management Lessons From a Controversial Genius

Cross-Pollination and Monday Meetings

To keep the channels of communication open, Steve Jobs held a meeting with his lieutenants every Monday to go over the progress, review strategies, and address problems. These meetings were critical, a major tool for Steve to stay informed and in control of every aspect. But the value of the meetings went well beyond that: Steve stayed in touch constantly with every project—few things came up in the Monday meetings that he didn’t already know about. He believed that all of his key people needed to know the status not just of his own projects but of all other projects, too. At the top level, he didn’t believe in compartmentalizing: he held a strong conviction in a belief that might be called cross-pollination—a confidence that the best ideas and best solution to problems often come from someone working on a totally different project, perhaps with a widely different background and knowledge base.

When you have chosen your team leaders well, keep them informed about the status of every project, and ask for their ideas and input even on projects that aren’t theirs.