Steve Jobs was wrong about middle management

Steve didn't believe most of the stuff he said. I used to work for him, and he got monthly reports from his PR firm. One section each month was filled with pages of quotes for him to say to be perceived as a visionary. He used them regularly, and most of his most well known quotes came from those pages. They were completely unrelated to the way we were doing things. And, obviously, we had plenty of middle managers.

When did Steve made the claim they have <i>no</i> Middle management? I don&#x27;t recall one. He said <i>lots</i> of middle management, and lack of authority in decision making. Time and Time again all the bio and interviews coming out was Steve gives lots of Autonomy to people, as long as they gets things done. He said there is a DRI ( Directly Responsible Individual )<p>And more often what Steve hate was the <i>process</i>, people are too stuck with the <i>process</i> and forgot the most important thing was the <i>content</i>, or the Product, or the end user.<p>Of course that is only half true because if you don&#x27;t have a proper process, your content may not sell, made, shipped in the best possible condition, maximising profits. Steve knew this the 2nd time he was back to Apple and that is why he bought in Tim Cook to keep up in tact.

&gt; Middle managers are in the unique position where they are close to production, but not producing themselves<p>No, those are line managers. Middle management is the layer between top management and line managers. Their reports are managers.

When you create the most valuable company in the world you can comment on effective management