AA221 - Steve Jobs' Radical Decision-Making: Why Consensus Beats Disagree & Commit

Episode notes

Steve Jobs once said he'd rather fire someone than force them to buy into a decision they disagreed with. This flies in the face of popular leadership advice like Amazon's "disagree and commit" philosophy. In this episode, we dive deep into Jobs' consensus-driven approach at NeXT and explore why expert-driven decision making might be superior to top-down mandates. We examine how Jobs' 8-person policy team made only 25 major decisions per year, the importance of psychological safety in decision-making, and why paying people to tell you what to do (rather than just do what you say) creates better outcomes. Other topics include... Consensus vs. "disagree and commit" leadership styles Expert-driven decision making vs. ivory tower decisions Building psychological safety for real alignment Scaling decision frameworks in growing organizations When to fire vs. when to coach through disagreement Perfect for product managers, agile coaches, and leaders looking to build more effective decision-making processes.

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