4
PEOPLE
“YOU must remember to choose character over pedigree.”
THE FOURTH ABSOLUTE FOR LEADERS:
No matter your industry or functional focus—launching a startup, engineering a turnaround, developing a new market—the people part of your business is where it all starts, piecing all those rough, jagged edges of individuality into one, continuous, unified mosaic of productive excellence. 
“In show business, the show comes first, because if you have a great show, you have a great business. If you don't have a good show, you don't have a business.”
DANIEL LAMARRE, CEO, Cirque du Soleil
The mechanics of this essential task garners the most attention: the hiring and the firing, putting the right people with the right skills in the right places at the right time, and helping them work well together. To do this well, start by constantly looking beyond those things trumpeted on their resumes and asking questions that tease out what's not on the page: their hunger. Their humanity. Their resilience.
You must remember to choose character over pedigree. In other words, hire for not simply what someone has done but more importantly who they are.
The story of one's character must often be excavated from the white spaces of his or her professional history, in exactly those tales most people leave ...
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