Stars to Priorities, Privates to Sergeant

"this mess? Who would you say is your number one guy you'd want right next to you?’ If they ask me this and I’m starting up, I say I want Russ. OK, that’s my boy, Russ. Why? Because Russ can do so many things, he has this multitalented thing that he can help me with. Whatever reason. ‘So who is yours?” We go through it. “Well, why are you asking for this guy?’ The process, the process—you go through it and through it and through it, until finally you look at it and you’ve got every- body right. All the priorities are right. And you’ve got the people, who your stars are. Then you start matching them up. Your number one star should go to your number one priority. Not very complicated.”"

"that’s one. Then we go through all the different product areas, and let’s say in one specific area we go through it and say, ‘What is our problem?’ ‘Well, support there is bad.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Well, people are not being trained—bad manager there.’ “OK, let’s address that issue.” Then on the other side of the board, I start to put down who are my key players in this. I put them all down. Then when you look up, you say, ‘Of course, it’s so simple. The thing that has the highest priority, you put your best people on it.’ I always say, ‘Well, if you"

"The military is the model for the twentieth-century corporate hierarchy. Yet even this most rigid of pyramids breaks down when a sluggish peacetime army is exposed to combat. Say a sergeant is killed: a weak lieutenant will choose the replacement from among the corporals only; a strong officer will choose from among all the available personnel. If the best man is a buck private who has shown courage, skill, and an appetite for over- coming challenge, so be it. In a society at war, military manage- ment rapidly becomes more efficient than civilian management. It must."