People are any organization’s most valuable asset – consumers, and employees.  Sales and marketing, customer service, the latest technology, your processes, your newest product, your back office all matter enormously.  Yet nothing matters as much as the people responsible for consuming what you produce, the people that implement how you produce and sell it, and the people who are the original creativity engines that keep it all connected and innovatively moving forward.

        The best business leaders focus on people.  They focus on meaningfully connecting with and providing value to customers.  They focus on leading, not managing employees.

        As a business owner – a leader – making decisions within an organization, you’re focused on hiring other leaders.  You should be focused on acquiring the right people, motivating them, enabling them, building a team and family with them, and then getting out of their way.  There is no more important and impactful thing you can do for your business than to make the right people decisions.

        Iconic businessman and investor in The Wall Street Journal:

        Poor management is the top threat facing companies, according to Warren Buffett, who spoke out on the issue over the weekend.

        The chief executive of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said choosing the wrong people to lead an organization is the No. 1 risk for businesses. In his five decades running Berkshire, Mr. Buffett said, he has seen a number of companies fail, from textile mills to department stores, and he suggested that a consistent element could be found in those failures beyond changing consumer behavior or shifting market forces.

        When it comes to people management, get the right people on the bus.  Take your time finding the right person, get them on the bus and let them find their seat.  Let the people that don’t belong off at the next stop, without exception.  Hire slow, fire fast.  Jim Collins, quoted here, expands on the topic greatly in his book, Good To Great:

        Carl Reichardt, who became CEO [of Wells Fargo] in 1983, attributed the bank’s success largely to the people around him, most of whom he inherited from Cooley. As he listed members of the Wells Fargo executive team that had joined the company during the Cooley-Reichardt era, we were stunned. Nearly every person had gone on to become CEO of a major company.

“…choosing the wrong people to lead an organization is the No. 1 risk for businesses.”