Put Your Best People On Opportunities NOT Problems…
July 23rd, 2008
I was just listening to the Audio Book - Good To Great and had an amazing idea at the beginning of CD #3. The chapter talks about the concept of putting your best people on OPPORTUNITIES, not problems.
The example he uses is Phillip Morris, back when they were not doing much business internationally (only 1% of their business was international), the CEO decided that it was time to grow the business world-wide.
The CEO took the company’s BEST executive who was leading the US operations and put him on the international project. He took him from where the revenue is 99% of the company and put him where it’s only 1%!
It almost felt like a demotion to some…
However, a few years later, Marlboro was the #1 selling brand world-wide (3 years before it ever became #1 even in US). The moral of the story is that put your strongest people on the opportunities that have the potential of having the most impact on your business and you double, triple or even quadruple your chances of the opportunity materializing.
Wasting quality people on “solving problems” can become a big waste. Your best people are your biggest asset, use them properly!
By the way, I highly recommend Good To Great. Click here to pick up a copy yourself, I recommend the audio series because he goes into much more detail and you can listen to it in the car or pop it on your ipod.
The idea was so good that I’ve been forced into looking into my own organization to see if I’m making any mistakes?
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Tags: good to great, opportunities
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:02 am
This is an interesting position, and may work quite well. However the good CEO/CIO/CTO must also identify what are his people good at?
Someone may be good at line management, another may be good at initative and enterpeneurhip, or just pure sales.
So it’s not always a rule that your best person will bring your opportunity to fruition - be careful
Bozidar Spirovski
http://www.shortinfosec.net
July 25th, 2008 at 2:09 am
Hey Bozidar,
You’re absolutely dead on, I should have mentioned that, but that’s a GIVEN. Absolutely you have to put the person that’s good at it
Good To Great is HUUUUUUGE on it. For example, Jim keeps saying:
“First Who, Then What” - I’ll talk more about this concept today later in a post.
Basically he’s saying, don’t bother trying to figure out WHAT you’re going to do or HOW you’re going to do. First just figure out WHO you’re going to put on the project, the rest takes care of itself (if you get the right people on it).
So, to modify, Put Your Best QUALIFIED People On Opportunities, NOT Problems…”
Thanks for clarifying that!