Steve Jobs Performance task

Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” In an effective team everyone collaborates to become successful. Joshua Davis the author of “La Vida Robot” and Walter Isaacson, author of an excerpt from Steve Jobs share similar views on what makes an effective team. Both authors believe an effective team consists of individuals who have distinctive and noteworthy skills that lead the team to success.

In “La Vida Robot,” Davis describes the different skills each student in the team has, making the team successful. Davis starts by describing Lorenzo as he states, “Lorenzo had grown up rebuilding car engines with his brother and cousin. Now he was ready to build something on his own.” Lorenzo’s expertise in mechanics is important because it makes him a valuable member of the team. In addition, Davis describes Christian as the brains of the team.

Christian’s intelligence is shown in the first meeting of the team when he states, “We should use glass flotation foam.”Christian suggests a plan for building the robot giving him a role as the engineer of the group. Davis also describes Oscar as the “born leader” of the group. Oscar is able to motivate others and his leadership helps the team as he gets the money to buy the materials for the robot. Furthermore, Davis mentions Luis Aranda who is responsible for picking up the materials of the robot. A conversation with Christian and Lorenzo resulted in “Luis going to a hardware store to buy a PVC pipe.” This shows Luis had the role of the errand boy and their team succeeded with everyone working together to defeat the MIT champions in a robotics competition.

Similar to Davis, Isaacson emphasizes on the different personalities and expertise that lead a team to success. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak impacted technology with their expertise, which came from the lessons they each learned from their fathers. In the excerpt it states, “Paul Jobs was a high school dropout who, when fixing up cars, knew how to turn a tidy profit by striking the right deal on parts.” Jobs had an expertise in business for the team’s success because he learned communication skills from his father. In contrast, Wozniak states, “I remember him telling me that engineering was the highest level of importance you could reach in the world.” Wozniak was inspired to be an engineer by his father and engineering became his expertise.

Moreover, their different personalities made them a powerful team. Jobs personality is described as “a bravado that helped him get things done… He could be charismatic but also cold and brutal.” This shows that Jobs manipulated others to get things in control. However, while Jobs had a motivating personality, Wozniak was creative and quiet. The text states, “Wozniak was shy and socially awkward… he is very bright in some areas but when it comes to dealing with people he don’t know.” This portrays Wozniak was more reserved and very intelligent. Both Jobs and Wozniak’s expertise develop from their personalities and since they are different, they work well together.

The author’s of both texts show how an effective technology team consists of everyone having a different role to play in order to make the dream happen. Different teams balance individual talents to become powerful, successful and influential.