Steve Jobs Was Wrong
I love Biographies. I love to read fiction and a few other genres but I love, consume, and I’d say, even worship a good biography. Biographies help provide context around some of the greatest men and women. If done well, a biography makes them more accessible and highlights their innate humanity, flaws and all. Steve Job’s biography is one of my top three favs of ALL time. After reading (actually, listening via Audiobook) the Steve Jobs biography; his contributions and his accomplishments are even more impressive.
Steve Jobs built amazing things with teams. With those teams, he did a lot! But he was wrong about one thing. He was famous for saying he only wanted ‘A’ players. I think he could have said more, done more -
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I grew up in a small town. I had a youth that ranged from Normal Rockwell-esque to “I can’t believe we got away with that!” to, now — as a parent, “If [insert name of kid here] does that what I did at that age, I will murder/ground/ship-to-boarding-school…” It was pretty normal.
There were a lot of benefits to growing up in a small town like being able to bike or roller-blade to anyone’s house, be gone for a whole day and no parents really worried too much. Someone would feed us and we would get sent home or to someone else’s house when they had enough of us. Very “it take s a village” kind of approach
Small towns also mean small schools. At both my Elementary and Junior High schools, there were barely enough girls in each grade to make a sports team. So, guess what? Everybody made the cut! There were no try outs — you basically just showed up and hoped you got a uniform that didn’t stink too badly. In general, we were terrible but we occasionally won.
Like lots of kids growing up, sports was a big deal. Volleyball and basketball were my sports of choice — you had a reason to ask for new shoes, proudly wear your god-awful uniform to school on game-days <Go Eagles!> and incorporate other performance enhancing equipment like matching headbands and scrunchies. And it got better. Additional perks included staying after school for practices, leaving school early to travel to ‘away’ games and, of course, the weekend tournaments where you got to stay in hotels. Out of town!
So there I was, living the dream. Elementary and Middle School perfection.
Then, at the tender age of 13, everything changed.
I started high-school.
In rural areas there is often only one high-school for the area. Suddenly, kids are getting bused in from other villages outside of town and all the kids at the Catholic elementary school started showing up. It was all very ‘survivor’ — with little cliques of young girls circling each other and throwing side-eye glances much like the gangs in West Side Story.
Shit was getting real.
At this point in the story, I will let you in on a little secret. I wasn’t really ‘sporty’ and leaned a bit more towards the ‘nerdy’ end of the spectrum. A jolly, somewhat popular and likeable nerd, but a nerd none-the-less. I was also a bit ‘husky’. And I had a perm. A home-perm.
Individual sports like track and field were way out of my reach given I lacked the combination of speed, strength and agility. I also lacked them individually. Soccer was out because there was too much running and the pitch was too big and it was outside (OUTSIDE!) My perm meant I needed climate control #TheStruggleIsReal Team sports like Basketball and Volleyball were really my only options.
About 2 weeks in, I hear on the announcements that volleyball try-outs are set to start this week. So I show up and, like the naive and sheltered girl I am, find myself in a state of shock and horror. There appear to be more girls here than could reasonably fit on a bus, let a lone the rickety old school van typically used to transport the ‘athletes’ down the highway to away games. All at once I realize, some of us are not gonna make it. These are legit try-outs and my hopes and dreams of travelling to away games and staying in hotels and having ‘volleyball’ shoes and kneepads (KNEEPADS!) were in jeopardy.
Standing there in my gym shorts, I am now faced with and the fact I am going to have to actually COMPETE with other people. Sporty looking people. I was going to have to fight for my place on the team. I’d like to say I made a conscious choice to face my fear and just ‘do my best’ and accept the outcome. Instead I stumbled blindly forward because I had already changed and leaving seemed too embarrassing.
I basically tried out by accident.
Here’s the weird thing — I made the team. I don’t think anyone was more surprised than me. Even weirder, I made the basketball team later that year and then I made the teams every year.
I always figured it was because I was ‘ just ‘ good enough and I was an easy team member to coach. I was respectful and always listened to the coach and followed the drills (#PeoplePleaser) I showed up on time and I didn’t do bad stuff like break curfew etc. I spent the vast majority of my time with the team “riding the pine” or “warming the bench” and I didn’t care . In fact, I was relieved. I knew everyone else on the team was better than me, so it removed all pressure. I still can’t do a lay-up with my left hand and they let me make the varsity team right up until I left for University.
I know, right?
There were real stars on our team — folks that went on to play basketball and volleyball all throughout University. A couple were recruited to play at colleges in the US. Legit talent. And some of the teams I was a part of won big titles and conferences or whatever (see? I still don’t’ even fully understand it!) but all of our names are on the banner in the gym. Side Note: My photo is also up in the cafeteria there as Student Council President (shocker) in case you ever wanna fully appreciate my perm.
Years later, after a run in with an old coach on a visit home to see my parents, I know that some of the assumptions I had made about why I made the team were correct. What I didn’t realize before, was that I actually played a more significant role. From the bench. From the side lines. In practices. All the time. I didn’t play a lot yet I played a critical role that helped the team succeed.
Each time we won a game or lost a heart-breaker — regardless of the outcome — I enabled the team to function at a higher level. I did that by accepting and playing my role without resentment or pretensions. I knew I was never going to be a starter but I practiced like one. Whatever I did — cheering from the sidelines, showing up for practices, — I did it with my whole heart and my loud voice. What I lacked in skill, I made up for in enthusiasm, commitment and persistence.
I put the goals of the team ahead of my ego. And I did all of this without realizing it. I was not an “A-player” and I knew it. I was a B-player at best, but I made the team better.
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From a professional standpoint, being a B-player is a blessing and a curse.
I’m rarely the smartest person in the room and I don’t have the most experience or knowledge but I would bet my pay-cheque that I care a hell of a lot more than your average bear. My commitment and drive to find solutions and make things happen or make things better is where I would end up the top of the heap. A lot of the time, this a good thing. Teams need a driver and cheer leader, a herder of cats, someone who is going to think through how this might look and feel for the folks on the front line or our customers. Someone who will ask the ‘dumb questions’ or say ‘I don’t know — let’s ask Timmy, he’s an expert’
That’s me. B-Player, through-and-through.
The flip-side of caring so much is I can get a little, well, carried away. Sometimes my passion overtakes my logic or the balance of demands and occasionally I require a somewhat forceful #RealityCheck. This is why I need to be a part of a team who can do that for me. People who are smarter than me, more experienced than me, technically capable in a specific domain or just DIFFERENT than me. People who will raise objections and concerns and know these are welcomed and wanted. People who are not opposed to saying “settle down Leah” and “let’s think of it another way” and “it’s time to get rid of that perm.”
What I lack in raw talent I make up for with enthusiasm, curiosity and a desire for the team to be successful. That’s what B-players do. B-players don’t necessarily have the raw talent or the training and experience that lets them easily see the path forward and the solution. That said, B-Players are often, in my experience, more resilient and resourceful, ask the tougher questions, force team members to explain, reflect and re-think. B-Players sometimes get teams to come up with even better solutions.
But B-Players need A-players just as much as they need us. I work with quite a few A-Players on a daily basis and it makes my current job fun and exciting, always edifying and occasionally, inspiring. A-Players are often visionary…but the really good ones know they are going to need some good B-Players to get things done.
No team succeeds without diversity of thought, skills and capability and it’s impossible to argue with Jobs’ success. I think Steve Jobs probably had B-players on his team. They were just doing their B-Player things so well, he mistook them for A-players.
Learn from Steve Jobs but when you build your dream team, don’t pass by the nerdy girl, the shy girl, the chubby girl in the corner too quickly. She might have just what your team needs.
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This article published internally at work has generated a great response and started some interesting discussions around team-building, diversity in teams and, generally, the idea of how we view others. What are your thoughts on team building and the value — and challenges — of diversity on teams?
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
