Get the right people on the bus before setting direction
Prioritize who is doing the work before deciding what to do.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Prioritize who is doing the work before deciding what to do.
- Why it works: Collins found that good-to-great leaders hired character and capability first, then figured out the role. This inverts the usual approach (define the role, hire for it). The mechanism is resilience: if you have the right people, they can adapt when the strategy must change — which it always must. Strategy is only as durable as the people executing it.
- Evidence: Backed by observational / correlational evidence.
- Avoid: Interpreting "first who" as license to delay indefinitely on strategy — the principle addresses hiring sequencing, not organizational paralysis.
Why it works
Collins found that good-to-great leaders hired character and capability first, then figured out the role. This inverts the usual approach (define the role, hire for it). The mechanism is resilience: if you have the right people, they can adapt when the strategy must change — which it always must. Strategy is only as durable as the people executing it.
How to do it
- 1When facing a key hiring decision, ask "Is this the right person?" before "Does this person fit this specific role?"
- 2Apply the same rigor to who stays as to who is hired — carrying underperformers costs more than the discomfort of addressing them.
- 3Be honest with yourself about a person’s fit before investing in changing them.
- 4When in doubt about a person, wait — doubt is usually information.
What the evidence says
ObservationalCollins’ "first who, then what" is one of his most cited findings. Human capital research consistently finds that team composition predicts performance better than strategy in many domains.
Honest caveat: The Good to Great finding is retrospective and correlational. "First who" has become a management axiom, but its causal weight relative to other factors is difficult to isolate.
Common mistake
Interpreting "first who" as license to delay indefinitely on strategy — the principle addresses hiring sequencing, not organizational paralysis.
IX Coach helps you assess who in your development ecosystem — coaches, mentors, peers — are the right people alongside you, not just the most available ones.
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