EXECUTIVE'S JUDGEMENT by Jim Collins

“A question for each of you to consider, which is harder for you of the two sides, humility or will?

I find most executives say, ‘Well, I’m good at the will part, I’m not very good at humility.’ I find this not to be true. I find that most executives would not have done what George Cain did at Abbott Laboratories, a family company, full of his brothers and cousins and aunts and uncles and moms and dads and brothers and sisters, and he realized following one of the principles of good to great, the first key step is to get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus and the right people in the right seats and then figure out where to drive this bus. And he had this horrifying realization, ‘my brothers and cousins and aunts and uncles and all of this, they are not the right people in those seats on this bus.’ Level 5 choice, ‘do I get the wrong people who I’m related to off the bus? Or do I not do it and have nice Thanksgivings still?’

My experience is most executives break on the will.”