The Bus...

Submitted by mneedham on April 15, 2009 - 8:57am.

Does this sound familiar?

"Most companies build their bureaucratic rules to manage the small percentage of wrong people on the bus, which in turn drives away the right people on the bus, which increases the need for more bureaucracy to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline, which then further drives the right people away...."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, 2001

According to Collins research, he states that great companies do not prioritise a vision or strategy they focus on getting the right people on the bus. Collins refers to this as "first who, then what".

Getting the right team plays a much bigger role that is often credited and yet on the sports field the subject of team selection occupies a huge amount of time.

As Tom Peters says: "good execution beats a great strategy any day"

How much time do you spend getting the right people on the bus? And, more importantly, how much time do you spend getting the wrong people off the bus?

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The most important process

By David Straker on April 15, 2009 - 2:11pm

Absolutely. The most important process in any organisation is selection. Whether external recruitment or internal promotion, the person you get shapes the organisation, both in how they behave once in the job and also in the message that all this sends to others. A classic demotivator is to recruit externally for roles that are ideal for developing your own people. If I see external people put above me who turn out not to be that great, I will develop a 'why bother' viewpoint about going for internal jobs. In this way the best people leave and the remainder hug trees and don't bother extending themselves. Dave

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