Jim Collins— Good to Great, First who...Then What

First, get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it.

Build a superior executive team. Then figure out the best path to greatness. (Versus the "genius with a thousand helpers" model.)

Compensation and incentives are important, but for different reasons... The purpose of a compensation system should not be to get the right behaviors from the wrong people, but to get the right people on the bus in the first place, and to keep them there.

Three principles:
1) When in doubt, don't hire— keep looking.
2) When you know you need to make people change, act.
3) Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.

Whether someone in the "right" person has more to do with character traits and innate capabilities than with specific knowledge, background, or skills.

One of the crucial elements in taking a company from good to great is somewhat paradoxical. You need executives, on the one hand, who argue and debate— sometimes violently— in pursuit of the best answers; yet, on the other hand, who unify fully behind a decision, regardless of parochial interests.