We focus on two things when hiring. First, find the best people you can in the world. And second, let them do their work. Just get out of their way.
Interpretation
Hire the best talent and allow them to work independently.
This quote emphasizes the importance of assembling a competent team and then granting them the autonomy to execute their tasks without unnecessary interference. Trusting skilled individuals to perform their roles can lead to greater innovation and success within an organization.
In practice
In a leadership workshop discussing team management strategies.
One thing about open source is that even the failures contribute to the next thing that comes up. Unlike a company that could spend a million dollars in two years and fail and there's nothing really to show for it, if you spend a million dollars on open source, you probably have something amazing that other people can build on.
Usage is like oxygen for ideas. That means every moment you're working on something without it being in the public it's actually dying, deprived of the oxygen of the real world.
If you're not embarrassed when you ship your first version, you waited too long.
Whenever we have thanked these men and women for what they have done for us, without exception they have expressed gratitude for having the chance to help - because they grew as they served.
Each person must live their life as a model for others.
You know, I think when people are in important positions in big organizations, they often get tied up with the minutia of managing money, managing things. They often forget that people deserve to be led.
The prevailing - and foolish - attitude is that a good manager can be a good manager anywhere, with no special knowledge of the production process he's managing. A man with a financial background may know nothing about manufacturing shoes or cars, but he's put in charge anyway.
The colonel replied that he didn't care how my men had got the job done. He was happy that it had been accomplished. He said that, obviously, no matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.
Peter's Principle: In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own incompetence.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.