Lead Worship

Good to Great – Chapter 3: First Who…Then What

Posted on August 22nd, 2008 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Book Notes, Good to Great, Leadership.

“The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. No, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it. They said, in essence, ‘Look, I don’t really know where we should take this bus. But I know this much: If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong peple off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it someplace great’.” (page 41)

“The good-to-great leaders understood three simple truths. First, if you begin with ‘who,’ rather than ‘what,’ you can more easily adapt to a changing world. If people join the bus primarily because of where it is going, what happens if you get ten miles down the road and you need to change direction?…Second, if you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away. The right people don’t need to be tightly managed or fired up; they will be self-motivated by the inner drive to produce the best results and to be part of creating something great. Third if you have the wrong people, it doesn’t matter whether your discover the right direction; you still won’t have a great company. Great vision without great people is irrelevant” (page 42).

“The main point is to first get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it. The second key point is the degree of sheer rigor needed in people decisions in order to take a company from good to great” (page 44).

“The purpose of a compensation system should not be to get the right behaviors from the wrong people, but to get the right people on the bus in the first pace, and to keep them there” (page 50).

“To attract and keep the best workers, Nucor paid its steelworkers more than any other steel company in the world. But it built its pay system around a high-pressure team-bonus mechanism, with over 50 percent of a workers compensation tied directly to the productivity of his work team of twenty to forty people…Nucor system did not aim to turn lazy people into hard workers but to create an environment where hardworking people would thrive and lazy workers would either jump or get thrown right off the bus (page 50-51).

“Nucor rejected the old adage that people are your most important asset. In a good-to-great transformation, people are not your most important asset. The right people are” (page 51).

“In determining ‘the right people,’ the good-to-great companies placed greater weight on character attributes than on on specific educational background, practical skills, specialized knowledge, or work experience. Not that specific knowledge or skills are unimportant, but they viewed these traits as more teachable (or at least learnable), whereas they believed dimensions like character, work ethic, basic intelligence, dedication to fulfilling commitments, and values are more ingrained” (page 51).

“The good-to-great companies probably sound like tough places to work and they are. If you don’t have what it takes, you probably won’t last long. But they’re not ruthless cultures, they’re rigorous cultures. And the distinction is crucial.
“To be ruthless means hacking and cutting, especially in difficult times, or wantonly firing  people without any thoughtful consideration. To be rigorous means consistently applying exacting standards at all times and at all levels, especially in upper management. To be rigorous, not ruthless, means that the best people need not worry about their posistions and can concentrate fully on their work”(page 52).

How to be Rigorous

1. Practical Discipline #1: When in doubt, don’t hire – keep looking
   “Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people.”
2. Practical Discipline #2:When you know you need to make a people change, act.
   “The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake. The best people don’t need to be managed. Guided, taught, led-yes. But not tightly managed. We’ve all experienced or observed the following scenario. We have a wrong person on the bus and we know it. Yet we wait, we delay, we try alternatives, we give a third and fourth chance, we hope that the situation will improve, we invest time in tryaing to properly manage the person, we build little systems to compensate for his shortcomings, and so forth.”
   “Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people. Worse, it can drive away the best people.”
   “Indeed, if we’re honest with ourselves, the reason we wait too long often has less to do with concern for that person and more to do with our own convenience.”
3. Practical Discipline #3: Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.
   “When you decide to sell off your problems, don’t sell off your best people…If you create a place where the best people always have a seat on the bus, they’re more likely to support changes in direction” (pages 54-59).

“Even during the darkest and most intense times of the takeover crises of the 1980s and despite the increasingly global nature of Gillette’s business, Mockler maintained remarkable balance in his life. He did not significantly reduce the amount of time he spent with his family, rarely working evenings or weekends. He maintained his disciplined worship practices” (page 61).

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