Put Simply:
Great organizations first find people whose core personality attributes and attitude push them to succeed for accomplishment sake rather than by external motivators. Once these type of people are “on the bus” and in the “right seats” for their skillset, then an organization can start moving forward.
This business principle translates as one should define "WHO” you are — via your priorities, attitude, and values —- before deciding “What direction you’ll go in”.
By following this method, you become the type of person you want to be, with a toolkit of attitudes to approach life with, before moving forward and facing challenges. All future challenges and decisions simplify down to an easy answer when the priorities, attitudes and values already exist as a cornerstone for the solution
One can think of this method as defining your first principles.
Check out Part 1 of the Good to Great Series here:
First Who/Then What as a Concept
In Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … And Others Don’t” By Jim Collins, the author shows how a Level 5 Leader builds out his organization using a uniquely different mindset than standard staffing & hiring conventions.
Collins shows that great companies and leaders first concern themselves with “Who they work with”, rather then “what the team will strive for”.
If this subtle difference in mindset creates greatness in an organization, then how can it be applied at home?
“Greatness" is defined by Collins as a company that achieves financial performance several multiples better than the market average, over a sustained period,
Here we’ll dive into the principle in more detail then see how Dads can apply it at home.
Picking your Spouse
Marriage advice or critique is not the focal point of this post or Trader Dads but it’s worth noting, the “Who” one picks as their spouse has ramifications on quality of life 10x more than most people think or consider when getting hitched.
WaitButWhy has a great piece on the game theory of spouse selection while intertwined with human emotion. Check it out!
Spoilers:
It’s the Secretary Problem
First Who/Then What
Attributes and Observations
Collins’ model for this principle breaks down into 4 parts, with each building on the one before, to create an optimal organization team.
1) Get the right people on the bus.
2) Get the right people in the right seats.
3) Get the wrong people off the bus.
4) Put who before what.
Technical skills are assumed to be proficient in these roles, so it’s the “soft” skills which make the difference and get you on the bus.
It’s easy to get a Python guy for some Fintech tool or a 22 year old willing to work for peanuts to get his Series 7 license, but finding one who is also NOT awful to interact with on a day to day basis is a whole other problem which we’re trying to address.
1) Get the right people on the bus.
Finding the right candidates should be a rigorous selection process
It’s better to leave a position unfilled then to bring toxic or misfit people into the culture
No link exists for compensation to be the motivating factor for people to go from good to great
2) Get the right people in the right seats.
While not all the seats need to be filled to move forward, the KEY decision making seats do.
Some seat fillers may seem straightforward — others are much more subtle
More Obvious
The extroverts chatting up the room go here.
The bookish types tending to their spreadsheets go there
Less Obvious
Not having Yes men surrounding lynchpin decision makers
Innovation mindset
Appropriate levels of Risk taking
If a change needs to be made, make sure to reflect on why the current fit does not work
3) Get the wrong people off the bus.
One bad apple can ruin the bunch.
People should be allowed to exit with dignity and grace if they leave
Review the mistakes and learn going forward
4) Put who before what.
With the Who in place, it’s like creating the best line up possible for your baseball team.
The team can adapt to their changing environment
The expectation is for good decision making to outweigh bad decision making over time due to the quality of people making the decisions
First Who / Then What as a Dad
Attributes and Observations
We have to turn this business principle inside out a bit to make good use of it family life. After all, we cannot pick and choose our kids or move them around to find their best spot in the line up.
We can pick the best version of our self to present to the world and use to face day to day challenges.
We can slant our reaction function from a “what” question (“what should I do?”) into a “who” decision (“who do I need to be right now to navigate the best way forward?”) .
The foundational tools for this reaction function is to first have a toolkit of “Whos” available in your arsenal. We can tweak Collins’ 4 principles below:
1) Get the right attitudes as a Dad
2) Pick the right attitude for the right situation
3) Get the bad attitudes out of your system
4) Put who before what.
1) Get the right attitudes as a Dad.
The universal attitude, with all its derivatives, boils down to willingly taking on the responsibility and wanting to be involved.
Expectations vs reality of parenthood are very different so it takes time to ease into the new mindset
Cheer and praise for your parental acts are not going to change the absolute quality and value of your parenting. Don’t do things to be liked by your kids or others.
My first kid came along about 6 months before a lot of our peers because well, life happens.
The parent of a 6 month old vs someone without kids looks like a PRO so “soon to be” dads would often ask me for tips.
I said the key is just wanting to be there. You can take any set of recommendations from people as ideas but ultimately, every kid is unique —- so you have to throw shit against the wall and see what sticks. Keep throwing shit at your kid and you’ll do fine :-)
2) Pick the right attitude for the right situation
A dad wears many hats such as:
A GoofBall Hat
A Teacher Hat
A Discipline hat
The key is choosing which hat to where in a given situation.
Some of this may seem obvious:
Your kid needs to learn to read; the Teacher Hat is good for that
Your kid drifts towards too far to being a brat; time to break out the Discipline hat
Less obvious would be:
Your kid is having a hard time making friends at school. Which hat?
Your kid is trying to excel in a sport? Which hat helps? Which hat hurts?
3) Get bad attitudes out of your system.
This is about removing bad attitudes and habits in yourself before bad situations occur like
layoff
unplanned pregnancy
annoying relative
There can be 100 variations of bad attitudes in life but they all mostly contain the below elements
Negativity
Isolation
Self centered focus
4) Put who before what.
With your attitudes in place and knowing when to use them, it’s like creating the best possible brain trust of Dad advice and .
The team can adapt to their changing environment
The expectation is for good decision making to outweigh bad decision making over time due to the quality of people making the decisions