Investing in the right people

In his best-selling book, How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins tells the story of how Bill Hewlett and David Packard started their business with the core driving principle of finding the right people to join their company. Their focus on having the right people so grounded their business that this principle even took priority over determining what Hewlett Packard was going to manufacture.

Packard’s Law

“No company can consistently grow revenues faster than its ability to get enough of the right people to implement that growth and still become a great company.”

David Packard

Once you know your vision your priority focus is on finding the people that fit with the values of your company. Even finding the most technically qualified person is secondary to finding a team member who will understand and live out your brand commitment.

Finding the right people to invite on your journey does take hard work.

It can be frustrating passing up otherwise qualified candidates that you know in your gut do not fit your unique purpose. However this frustration will be more than compensated for by avoiding the pain of replacing the wrong person after months, or even years, of struggling to make it work.

Make it your ambition to invest energy into developing a process for sifting through the pebbles and rocks so you can find and keep just the gold nuggets.

• You owe it to yourself.
• You owe it to your dreams.
• You owe it to your team.
• You owe it to the gold nugget candidates.
• And you even owe it to the pebbles and rocks.