Those who build great organizations make sure they have the right people on the bus and the right people in the key seats before they figure out where to drive the bus. They always think first about who and then about what.

If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it someplace great.

if people are on the bus because of who else is on the bus, then it’s much easier to change direction

Second, if you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away.

Third, if you have the wrong people, it doesn’t matter whether you discover the right direction; you still won’t have a great company.

We found no systematic pattern linking executive compensation to the process of going from good to great. The evidence simply does not support the idea that the specific structure of executive compensation acts as a key lever in taking a company from good to great.

It’s not how you compensate your executives, it’s which executives you have to compensate in the first place.

The good-to-great companies understood a simple truth: The right people will do the right things and deliver the best results they’re capable of, regardless of the incentive system.

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