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

Project Groups

Steve believed in small, integrated units. He had a vision of a project group always small enough that every member—every member—stayed involved all the way through. Off-site meetings for the entire team were one key way of making that happen. The commitments made at a meeting in front of all team members were sometimes even more powerful than a one-on-one promise to Steve; they were essential for keeping projects on schedule.

For me, the timing of the first Macintosh off-site was perfect, coming not long after I joined Apple. Though I had been hired to be vice president of human resources for the entire company, Steve also included me as a member of the Mac team. So I had two jobs: one on the corporate side with responsibilities for the whole company, the other as a kind of graybeard for Steve—older, more experienced in business, and with my years at IBM and Intel, more experienced as well in the world of technology.