The first principle is that no one is a good judge of people. Some individuals have more insight into others than most, but even those with great experience do not rely on it. Their competence lies in knowing how often one can be misled by impressions and intuition. The risk associated with personnel decisions is too great to base them on subjective certainty.

The second principle concerns dealing with mistakes. Few will claim never to have made a poor personnel decision. More important is how one reacts. The common response is to blame the selected person. Experienced people restrain this impulse and act according to the motto: “I made a wrong decision – and therefore I must correct it.”

The Peter Principle must not be accepted. Wherever you find a failure in a position, there is another who promoted that person, and it is the latter who bears responsibility.

Personnel decisions – the third principle – must never be made quickly. Quick personnel decisions are almost always wrong. Because of their long-term and signaling effects, personnel decisions, especially for top positions, must be made with the utmost care.

The fourth principle states that one must never assign a task that is new and critical to the organization to someone who is also new to the organization. Violating this principle creates an equation with two unknowns. One unknown is enough. This principle reaches its limits when filling top positions from outside.

The fifth guideline is: the most challenging positions must be filled with the best people. At first glance this seems self-evident. In practice it is often not the case.

The sixth maxim is to grant people a right to competent leadership. When someone is appointed as a superior, the fate of other people is placed in their hands. Bad, incompetent, or corrupt leadership has caused more harm than natural disasters and disease. Therefore, the highest standards are just good enough when appointing people to leadership roles.

The seventh principle is: there are no universal geniuses. People have strengths and weaknesses. The more pronounced their strengths, the greater their weaknesses often are. Some may be more suitable for certain positions, but they too have flaws.

Many fall into the opposite trap and choose people with the fewest weaknesses – the “well-rounded personality.” While one trap leads to searching for the impossible, the other leads to mediocrity. Successful organizations need people with outstanding strengths – precisely those strengths the organization requires for success.

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