The right people in the right place are the foundation of greatness.
Asking “who” must take precedence over asking “what.” The transformation from good to great always began with getting the right people into the company and the wrong people out of it, even before defining a clear path forward.
The right people will eventually find a path to success. When Dick Cooley took over as the CEO of Wells Fargo, he realized he could never understand the major changes that would follow from the imminent deregulation of the banking industry.
But, he reasoned that if he got the best and the brightest people into the company, somehow together they would find a way to prevail. He was right. Warren Buffett subsequently called Wells Fargo’s executives “The best management team in business,” as the company prospered spectacularly.
Good-to-great companies focused more on finding people with the right character traits rather than professional abilities, reasoning that the right people can always be trained and educated.
With the right people, companies did not need to worry about how to motivate them. They focused on who they paid, not how they paid, and created an environment where hard workers thrived and lazy workers left. In top management, people either jumped right off or stayed for the long run.
Good-to-great companies never hired the wrong person even if the need was dire, but hired as many right people as were available, even without specific jobs in mind for them.
When good-to-great companies did see they had the wrong person, they acted immediately. They would either get rid of them or try to cycle them to a more suitable position. Delaying dealing with the wrong people only frustrates the rest of the organization.
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