It's Not the How or the What but the Who ─ Succeed by Surrounding Yourself With the Best

Are you surrounding yourself with the right people?

Yes, your success in business and in life depends on your own performance. But have you thought about how those around you affect that performance? Do they strengthen or weaken it? Help or hinder your progress?

In It's Not the How or the What but the Who (a phrase adapted from Amazon's Jeff Bezos), renowned global talent management expert Claudio Fernandez-Araoz explains why people decisions?the choices you make about friends, your spouse, employees, project partners, mentors, and even elected officials?are more important than any other. To thrive, you need to get the best people in your corner and on your team, and then help them grow. Yet few people know how to do that well.

In a series of short, lively essays, Fernandez-Araoz addresses the challenges and explains how to overcome them. Based on research and stories from his nearly thirty-year career in global executive search and leadership development, each offers wisdom and practical advice about how to ?get people right” in a more systematic way?from identifying your biases and accurately assessing the skills and potential of others to selecting, developing, motivating, compensating, and diversifying teams.

Engaging and often counterintuitive, the book is packed with important lessons on how to surround yourself with the best.

Claudio Fernandez-Araoz is a global expert on hiring and promotion decisions and leadership development and a frequent keynote speaker at business gatherings in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. His advice has been sought by the CEOs of several of the world’s largest companies and many governments. As a senior adviser at the leading executive search firm Egon Zehnder and a former member of its global executive committee, Fernandez-Araoz has interviewed more than twenty thousand executives in more than forty countries and has had intimate career discussions with more than four thousand. He is a regular guest lecturer at Harvard Business School.