Jim Collins, in his book “How the Mighty Fall”, identifies that one of the most damaging things within an organisation is when it consistently grows revenues faster than its ability to get enough of the right people to implement that growth. The greatest warning sign for declining companies is a declining proportion of key seats filled with the right people.

At any given time a leader should be able to answer the following questions:

• What are the key positions within the organisation?
• What percentage of these is filled with the right people?
• What are the plans to increase this percentage?
• And what are the backup plans in the event that a right person leaves their position?

Jim Collins’s research reveals six generic characteristics of the right people for key seats within an organisation. They are:

1. The right people fit with the company’s values. Great companies build almost cult-like cultures where those who do not share the institution’s values find themselves surrounded by antibodies and ejected like a virus. You don’t get people to share your core values, you need to hire people who already have a predisposition for your core values, and hang onto them.

2. The right people don’t need to be tightly managed. The right people won’t need you to motivate or manage them. They will be productive, self-motivated and self-disciplined, driven to do the best because it is who they are.

3. The right people understand that they do not have jobs, they have responsibilities. They know what they are ultimately responsible for and won’t let the side down.

4. The right people fulfil their commitments. In a culture of discipline people do what they say without complaint, and don’t commit to what they cannot deliver.

5. The right people are passionate about the company and its work. The right people have great passion for what they do and the vision they are helping to achieve.

6. The right people display window and mirror maturity. When things go well the right people give credit to others, but when things go bad they do not blame others or circumstances but own up to their responsibility.

Whether a company sustains exceptional performance depends on whether it continues to have the right people in power. Leaders who fail to create effective mechanisms that will produce an effective transfer of power from themselves to the next generation set their enterprises on a path to decline. Sometimes they wait too long, and sometimes they never address the question at all. In order to sustain greatness, leaders need to realise that they must make provision for the process of succession while there is still time to do so. While no leader can single-handedly build an enduring great company, the wrong leader in power can almost single-handedly bring a company down, so choose wisely.

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