Review: It's Not the How or the What but the Who

It's Not the How or the What but the Who: Succeed by Surrounding Yourself with the Best by Claudio Fernández-Aráoz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I enjoy reading about employee engagement, culture, and related topics since I am a firm believer that the "human resources" if treated right, are a company's true competitive advantage. Luckily more startups and companies are starting to understand this and more studies and books support this.

Claudio Fernandez-Araoz in his book It's Not the How or the What but the Who: Succeed by Surrounding Yourself with the Best shows us the flip side of this. He has studies and anecdotes to demonstrate that if you figure out how to hire the best and surround yourself with these people, you will be able to succeed well beyond the average. This, he believes, is the secret behind the great CEOs such as Bezos, Jobs, Agnelli and others deemed top CEOs in terms of value they provide their shareholders.

The book helps us learn how to do this for ourselves: from recognizing internal biases that can interfere with hiring the best, to how to set-up a recruitment process that will ensure we find the best, to onboarding them correctly so that they can shine. Given the author's experience as a senior global executive search adviser, the information and advise are invaluable and also very readable.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to succeed, since you will have to learn how to surround yourself with those that can further your success.