Building a successful business starts by putting the right people in key seats. Management guru Jim Collins defines six characteristics that any person in a key seat should have. The right people:
1. Share your core values. When they walk in the door, they already have the same values rather than having to turn into people with the same values.
2. Don’t need to be tightly managed. They are self-managed, self-disciplined and self-motivated.
3. Do what they say they will do. They are very careful about what they say they will do.
4. Have responsibilities. They don’t think in terms of “I have a job,” but rather, “What am I responsible for?”
5. Have window-and-mirror maturity. When things go badly, they’re comfortable looking in the mirror and taking responsibility. When things go well, they look out the window to point to others for their success.
6. Are passionate about everything you do. Whether it’s your core values, culture, product or service, they are passionate about being a part of the team.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
To build a successful business, you must start by putting the right people in key seats. Management guru Jim Collins has a list of six items defining these people.
Number one, they fit the corporate values and the company culture. Very, very important. You need to hire people who have the same beliefs and the same way of doing things that you have, so you build a strong company culture with strong values.
Number two, these people don’t need to be tightly managed. They know that the job needs to get done and they start doing it without waiting for instruction. They just get stuff done on their own.
Number three, these people understand that they don’t just have jobs, they have responsibilities. This means that they were not hired to produce a certain number of hours of work or to sit in the office for a certain time. They were hired to produce results. They have responsibility for results, for producing results, and they need to figure out how to achieve them.
These people fulfill their commitments. If they know that something is on their responsibility, they make sure it happens, and they don’t stop until it has been done.
They are passionate about the company. They didn’t join it for the money or the prestige or the short commute or something. They are truly passionate about what the company is trying to accomplish and how the company is trying to make the world a better place.
And finally, they display what Jim Collins calls the window and mirror mentality. This means that when things go well, they look out the window and point at the team, who made it happen. When things don’t go well, they look in the mirror and look for faults and mistakes in themselves.
Those six items define the right people in key seats. When you start there, you can go on to strategy, to planning, to business model and everything else. But you must start building a business by putting the right people in key seats.
