3 ms·
I think Steve's most important skill was the ability to say no. But even more important, was his ability to say no and that the person he said no to listened,
by rr3932 4y ago
I think Steve's most important skill was the ability to say no. But even more important, was his ability to say no and that the person he said no to listened, agreed he said no, and then stopped working on the thing and tried to do something better.
If you've ever worked in a large company you know how rare that is and how critical that is.
- joelthelion 4y agoSaying no is overrated. I mean, of course, it's a good thing to know when to say no, if used parsimoniously. The problem is that we now have zillions of wannabee Steve Jobs who believe saying no to everything automatically makes them brilliant visionaries.
- hnfong 4y agoIt just means saying "yes" to the right things, and nothing more, is crucial. Which is a just very roundabout way of saying success comes from consistently making good choices...
- rr3932 4y agoIt's easy to say no. The hard part is getting people to listen and that's what Steve Jobs did especially well. That was the point I was trying to make. I've been on a ton of teams where everyone agreed we were not going to do a feature. Only to have that person go back to working on that feature because it was important to them and the work they were supposed to be doing, which the team depended on, didn't get done. In my experience, this is a serious issue in large corporations and it happens at the individual, group and even division level. Apple, under Steve Jobs, didn't seem to have this problem and they seemed to get a ton done, with comparatively quite small teams, because of it.