Collaboration

2010-06-23T10:46:00.002-04:00

The following is an excerpt from Steve Jobs interview at D8 Conference, 2010.

Video time stamp: 1:00:01-1:01:28

from “Steve Jobs at the D8 Conference” Podcast

“One of the keys to Apple is that Apple’ s an incredibly collaborative company. You know how many committees we have at Apple? Zero. We have no committees.

We are organized like a startup. One person’s in charge of iPhone OS. One person’s in charge of Mac hardware. One person’s in charge of iPhone hardware engineering. Another person’s in charge of worldwide marketing. Another person’s in charge of operations. We’re organized like a startup. We’re the biggest startup on the planet.

We all meet for three hours once a week. And we talk about everything we’re doing, the whole business. There’s tremendous teamwork at the top of the company which filters down to tremendous teamwork throughout the company. Teamwork is dependent on trusting the other folks to come through with their part without watching them all the time. But trusting that they’re going to come through with their parts.

That’s what we do really well. We’re great at figuring out how to divide things up into these great teams that we have, and all work on the same thing, touch bases frequently, and bring it all together into a product. We do that really well.”

My initial reaction to this clip is to wonder what I can learn from Apple in terms of ministry leadership. I'm not thinking here of the whole church, but my specific middle school ministry. I'm wondering if anyone else believes there is a gem here for us to apply in ministry.

Mike's Memos

Collaboration