I just finished reading a very interesting book, Inside Steve’s Brain
by Leander Kahney. I highly recommend it to anyone who finds the rise
of Apple, or Steve Jobs in particular, interesting. I think there are
some great leadership principles that can be found in the book
(although some I would suggest are not transferable to church
leadership).
At the end of each chapter, Kayney provides a point form overview of
the principles Steve follows. Over the next few days, I’m going to list
some of them for you. If you’re a pastor or leader reading this blog, I
do suggest you grab a copy of the book and read it for yourself.
Chapter Four: “Elistism: Hire Only A Players, Fire the Bozos“
Here are the lessons from Steve:
- Partner only with A players and fire bozos. Talented staff are a competitive advantage that puts you ahead of your rivals.
- Seek out the highest quality — in people, products, and advertising.
- Invest in people. When Jobs axed products after returning to Apple, he “steved” a lot of projects, but he kept the best people.
- Work in small teams. Jobs doesn’t like teams of more than one hundred members, lest they become unfocused and unmanageable.
- Don’t listen to “yes” men. Argument and debate foster creative thinking. Jobs wants partners who challenge his ideas.
- Engage in intellectual combat. Jobs makes decisions by fighting about ideas. It’s hard and demanding, but rigorous and effective.
- Let your partners be free. Jobs gives his creative partners a lot of rope.
I have to be honest. At first glance, this chapter didn’t seem to offer a lot for someone in church leadership. After all, it almost seems like people are secondary to performance in Jobs’s opinion. But after I reflected on this chapter a little more, I think maybe there’s a lot more happening in Steve’s brain than I’m initially giving him credit for.
Jobs does value people. He just recognizes that people are most effective when they are functioning within their giftings. I wonder if we are guilty within the church of short changing people’s giftings when we allow them to function in areas that they shouldn’t be in. Maybe, we need to be more honest with some people. Maybe they shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing. That doesn’t mean we “fire” them, but maybe it means we encourage them to try a different area of giftedness.
Something to spend more time thinking about.
Next Up: Passion.
