Sublime

This transition from player to coach happens in many fields. Writers become editors, engineers become managers. When bench scientists become lab heads their new managerial duties include hiring the right young researchers, mentoring them, going over their results, suggesting new experiments, and offering up the insights that come from having been

Reflecting on more than a quarter century of rigorous research into what makes great companies tick, I’ve come to see “first who” as the one principle above all others that you must not get wrong. First in importance, above every other activity, is the imperative to get the right people on the bus.

effective CEO/coach might say,

She went into an incredible learning mode, making herself into the CEO Xerox needed to survive.

The higher one rises in an organization, the more one must be a generalist.

As Professor Henry Mintzberg taught, options for your strategy spring from two very different sources. The first source is anticipated opportunities—the opportunities that you can see and choose to pursue. In Honda’s case, it was the big-bike market in the United States. When you put in place a plan focused on these anticipated opportunities, you

No dictating.

three dimensions: 1. The movement from a hands-on doer, to a manager, to a leader, and ultimately to a coach/mentor of others; 2. From a functional specialist to a general manager, back to a functional specialist, and ultimately to a strategy and culture “conductor;” and 3. From having a passionate belief in the primacy of oneself, to having a

Give special attention/effort to firms that have recently had a personnel change.