Decisions Over Decimals

CHAPTER 10Creating a Quantitative Intuition™ Culture

At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.

— Lawrence Bossidy

Growing and building a team is one of the most essential leadership skills you can develop. As Walt Disney believed you can dream, create, design, and build the most wonderful place in the world but it requires people to make the dream a reality. Consider the great innovators and pioneers from Olive Ann Beech, Henry Ford, Katharine Graham, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, William Procter, Asa Candler, or Madam C.J. Walker. All were leaders who asserted a compelling vision that redefined or created new industries. In each case, they spent a considerable amount of time building teams to turn their vision into a reality.

Questions you may be asking yourself at this point, after equipping yourself with the Quantitative Intuition (QI)™ skills discussed in the previous chapters: How do I hire for QI? What are individual skills I should be looking for, and what is the ideal composition of the team?

Identifying top talent is the first hurdle. You then need to successfully recruit A‐list talent and/or subject matter experts. To further complicate the process, this task is often done under time constraints as you need to quickly fill a position. Finally, you need to create an environment where this top talent is motivated to work as a collective yet feel valued and recognized for their contribution. Essentially you are deciding whom you want to marry ...