Great People Decisions - Fernandez Araoz

This was also a birthday present from a friend :) Couldn't have been more appropriate, given my current work related to personnel and the fact that I'm supervising with a small team of people.

Took me a few weeks to fill this in, cos I was interrupted by a number of other books in the process. This book is a gem. It resonates strongly with many of the things that I intuitively believe in but never had the opportunity to hear from a source that's more credible (than own self-affirmation!).

1. The higher you climb, the more impt hiring decisions become. First you hire great people, then you assign the right person to the right job.
2. The trend now is for HR to be increasingly decentralised. As such, there is greater responsibility for managers down the chain to take charge of hiring and managing talent.
3. When hiring, experience, IQ and EQ all matter. However, the combination of EQ and experience is the most powerful predictor of future performance. The lack of EQ alone is the factor which is strongly correlated with executive failure.
4. Essential competencies for managers / leaders include: (i) results orientation, (ii) team leadership - the ability to build high performance teams, (iii) strategic orientation, or big picture (iv) collaboration and influencing. Is starting to sound like the AIM model eh.
   
5. Potential comprises the following components: (i) ambition - the need for achievement, affiliation and power, (ii) ability to learn from experience and (iii) specific competencies relevant to the particular job.
6. Finally! Integrating the new hires and talent. One on one time cannot be substituted. As a manager, this is the one thing that cannot be delegated or solved with technology.