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

Wisdom Required

Steve had this almost scary view of the culture he wanted, the kinds of people who were suited to that culture, and the mix of people required to round out the needs. It was as if he had simply grasped intuitively the ultimate landscape necessary to build and sell the ultimate product.

Yet when Steve first organized the Mac group and selected its leaders, he was so caught up in having young, entrepreneurial people that he missed one crucial factor: the need for wisdom. Life experiences have a major importance in determining if you are up to the responsibility being placed on your shoulders, especially in terms of handling major problems and major disappointments.

He soon recognized the need to include what he had taken to calling people of wisdom. By that he meant people like me—a good deal older than 22 (which if I recall was, incredibly, the average age of the techies on the original Mac team). And not just older, but with the kind of real-world business knowledge only acquired from the experience of working your way through tough challenges of product development, meeting marketplace demands, and finding ways to cope with the often unrealistic corporate restrictions of how-it’s-always-done-around-here.