Great People Decisions

How can you transform your career, your organization, and even society itself—not by what you do, but by who you surround yourself with? In It’s Not the How or the What but the Who, leadership expert Claudio Fernández-Aráoz argues that success isn’t primarily about strategy or tactics—it’s about people. The best leaders, companies, and even nations rise by mastering one core skill: making brilliant “who decisions.”

Drawing on nearly three decades as a global executive search consultant, Fernández-Aráoz distills lessons from the world’s most effective leaders—including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Roger Agnelli of Vale, Steve Jobs of Apple, and Yun Jong-Yong of Samsung. Despite vast differences in culture, industry, and background, these leaders share one common practice: they obsessively and deliberately choose, develop, and align themselves with exceptional people. The book explores how honing this ability can radically alter the trajectory of your work, life, and broader society.

Why the “Who” Matters More Than the “How”

Aráoz begins the book with two astonishing corporate stories: Jeff Bezos growing Amazon from a garage to a trillion-dollar enterprise, and Roger Agnelli turning a former state-run Brazilian mining firm into one of the most valuable companies on earth. What links them isn’t technology, geography, or timing—it’s how each man built great teams. Bezos famously said that a company’s questions evolve from “how?” to “what?” to “who?” As Amazon scaled, his role became finding and empowering the right people, not managing processes. Agnelli, too, credited Vale’s transformation to a disciplined meritocracy: “A great team,” he told Fernández-Aráoz, “is the key to success.”

This principle—putting “who” first—defines not just business success but excellence in every human endeavor. Fernández-Aráoz argues that when you choose the right people, they bring or create the right strategies. When you get the wrong ones, no brilliant plan can save you. It’s a philosophical shift echoed across thought leaders from Jim Collins (Good to Great) to Patrick Lencioni (The Five Dysfunctions of a Team): great people are the ultimate strategy.

A Journey Through the Six Parts of the Book

The book unfolds across six parts, each revealing a new dimension of the “who” challenge. Part One, “The Enemy Within,” shows how our own evolutionary biases and emotional impulses—such as overconfidence, inertia, favoritism, and decision fatigue—often sabotage our ability to choose and develop the right people. We are, Fernández-Aráoz says, “prehistoric hardware running on Victorian software.” Modern leaders must consciously reprogram these instincts.

Part Two, “Outside Obstacles and Opportunities,” examines the external forces that complicate talent selection—from shrinking global talent pools and lying candidates to flawed hiring democracies and perverse incentives. The section offers practical solutions for building fair, evidence-based and high-quality people decisions in even the most complex organizations.

Part Three, “The Right People,” moves from diagnosis to remedy. It offers robust frameworks for identifying high potential, emotional intelligence, and leadership competencies that drive long-term performance. Here Fernández-Aráoz draws on both psychological science and his firm’s massive database of executive assessments. He describes the “Magic Number” of candidates to consider, the importance of structured checklists over gut-feel interviews, and the eight core leadership competencies that consistently predict success.

From Individual to Collective Greatness

But finding great people isn’t enough—you must make them shine together. In Part Four, “The Bright Future,” and Part Five, “Teams That Thrive,” Fernández-Aráoz explains how to integrate, motivate, and align your stars into cohesive teams. He offers insights from neuroscience, emotional intelligence, and behavioral economics on how to sustain energy, fairness, and purpose across diverse groups. He insists that thriving teams depend on both rigor (merit, structure, and discipline) and love (trust, compassion, and shared purpose).

Finally, Part Six, “A Better Society,” scales this philosophy outward—from companies to institutions, nations, and religions. Fernández-Aráoz makes a daring case: if societies could make better people decisions—selecting qualified, ethical, and purpose-driven leaders instead of merely familiar or popular ones—the world itself would change. He points to Singapore’s talent-first governance model and Pope Francis’s ascension as examples of how intentional selection can renew even vast, complex systems.

Why This Matters for You

Whether you’re hiring your next employee, choosing a business partner, evaluating a mentor, or even deciding whom to marry, Fernández-Aráoz argues that better “who” decisions shape every aspect of our success and fulfillment. The book serves as a masterclass in overcoming biases, designing disciplined processes, and developing people after they’re chosen. By combining behavioral science, leadership wisdom, and compelling global case studies, It’s Not the How or the What but the Who provides both an intellectual framework and a moral exhortation: surround yourself with the best—and become better yourself through them.

According to Fernández-Aráoz, our greatest obstacle in choosing the right people isn’t the talent market, corporate politics, or external forces—it’s our own brain. In the opening chapters of the book’s first section, aptly named The Enemy Within, he unpacks how deeply flawed human wiring, outdated education, and emotional impulses consistently derail our ability to judge others accurately.

Prehistoric Hardware, Victorian Software

Our brains evolved for survival, not selection. Tens of thousands of years ago, we judged people by similarity and familiarity: was this stranger like me or a potential threat? Those instincts continue to shape modern hiring and partnership decisions. We gravitate toward what feels comfortable, not what’s best. Modern managers, Fernández-Aráoz argues, are “savanna humans in skyscrapers”—using ancient instincts to navigate complex organizational choices.

Education has made little improvement. Just as neuroscience lags behind the digital revolution, management education still prioritizes accounting and finance over people assessment. In one study, only 29% of MBA programs offered more than one course related to human capital management. “We’re equipped with the wrong software,” he warns—trained to optimize capital, not human potential.

Overconfidence and the Illusion of Knowing

Another invisible bias Fernández-Aráoz explores is overconfidence. In one study, two-thirds of corporate CFOs made wildly inaccurate stock market predictions despite high certainty. We do the same with people. The Princeton economist Daniel Kahneman calls this blindness WYSIATI—“what you see is all there is.” We fill informational gaps with our imagination and then mistake those incomplete stories for evidence. The author illustrates this with two candidates—Mary, an Ivy League graduate, and Joe, a nontraditional worker fired from a small firm—who are judged entirely by surface impressions. In truth, Mary bullies colleagues while Joe perseveres under hardship. “So sure, but so wrong,” Fernández-Aráoz writes. Most hiring managers never uncover the unseen context.

Inertia and the Cost of Inaction

Even after recognizing mistakes, organizations resist change. The author calls this inertia—our tendency to keep underperformers or dysfunctional relationships because we dread the pain of letting go. We procrastinate, fear loss, and confuse compassion with inaction. Yet as Fernández-Aráoz reminds us through examples like Washington Post’s Katharine Graham, great leaders must act decisively to “get the wrong people off the bus.” True compassion, he adds, involves honest feedback and timely change before failure destroys lives and teams.

Emotional Traps and Decision Fatigue

Emotions can masquerade as intuition, luring us to poor judgments “in the heat of the moment.” Charismatic candidates often dazzle interviewers into abandoning rational criteria. To protect against this, Fernández-Aráoz recommends pre-set checklists, cool-down periods, and perspective-taking techniques such as Suzy Welch’s “10-10-10 rule”: consider how you’ll feel about a decision in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years. He also warns of decision fatigue—the erosion of judgment after repeated choices. Just as tired surgeons make poorer medical calls, leaders who conduct back-to-back interviews late in the day become more impulsive or risk-averse. The fix: schedule people decisions for fresh, alert hours, and take cognitive breaks.

Ultimately, The Enemy Within is a plea for self-awareness. Great judgment about others first requires humility about ourselves. Fernández-Aráoz’s call is both scientific and spiritual: “You’re not naturally wired to make the right people choices—but you can rewire yourself.” With training, discipline, and structure, you can override the primitive instincts that sabotage your success.

In Part Two, Fernández-Aráoz turns his gaze outward to describe the seismic global forces shaping talent decisions. He calls them the “Other GDP”—Globalization, Demographics, and Pipelines. Together, these trends are reshaping the labor market, creating what he terms “the toughest war for talent ever.”

Globalization: A Borderless Competition for Brains

Globalization has greatly expanded where companies—and individuals—can compete. In Fernández-Aráoz’s 2006 study of 47 multinational firms worth $2 trillion in market capitalization, leaders projected an 88% revenue increase from developing markets within six years. That prediction came true, but it came with an overlooked cost: every company now hunts for talent in the same global village. Developing countries like Brazil or China are no longer the suppliers of cheap labor—they’re fierce competitors for high-level expertise. The result is a worldwide race for the same scarce skills.

Demographics: The Shrinking Sweet Spot

Demographic shifts amplify this crisis. The prime leadership age bracket—35 to 44—is contracting dramatically as baby boomers retire and fewer young professionals replace them. Developed economies face talent droughts, while even countries like China are aging faster than expected. By 2020, many nations will have more workers retiring than entering the labor force. As Fernández-Aráoz writes, “Organizations will have half the people they need to thrive.”

Pipelines: The Leadership Gap Inside Firms

The third challenge is homegrown: companies have failed to develop their own future leaders. Most firms score themselves poorly on leadership pipelines, with median scores around 3 out of 5 in global surveys. Simple metrics reveal the problem: half of senior leaders are nearing retirement, yet half of them lack successors. Internal pipelines have dried up even as external labor pools shrink—leaving leaders “caught in a perfect demographic storm.”

Turning Crisis into Opportunity

The antidote, Fernández-Aráoz insists, is not despair but differentiation. Smart leaders will treat the global shortage of talent as an opportunity to build distinct advantage. He encourages readers to conduct personal and organizational audits: Who are your most strategic people? Which roles create disproportionate value? Who might leave, and how will you replace them? Perhaps most importantly, who are your rising stars, and what new responsibilities could expand their potential?

Fernández-Aráoz’s message is both urgent and optimistic. “When everyone else fights for the same scarce talent,” he says, “the few who can develop it internally will stand far ahead.” The “Other GDP” is a wake-up call for every manager: future success will belong to those who excel not just in buying talent, but in growing it.

One of Fernández-Aráoz’s most influential assertions is that we’re entering what he calls the fourth era of people decisions. After centuries of choosing based on physical strength, intellect, and proven competence, today’s accelerating world demands something different: potential—the ability to learn, adapt, and grow into fundamentally new roles.

What You Can Change, What You Can’t

Drawing on positive psychology and research by Martin Seligman, the author explains that certain traits—IQ, values, and deep-seated motivation—change little over time, while others such as behaviors, habits, and soft skills can grow dramatically with feedback and practice. Thus, hiring for IQ or past experience alone overestimates what stays static and underestimates what can develop. As he puts it, “You can’t teach integrity, but you can cultivate empathy.”

The DNA of Potential: Motivation and the “4 Cs”

High potential, Fernández-Aráoz argues, combines two factors: motivation (deep commitment paired with personal humility) and four key leadership assets—curiosity, insight, engagement, and determination. The book dramatizes these traits through the story of Pedro Algorta, one of the survivors of the 1972 Andes plane crash. Algorta demonstrated curiosity even in disaster (noticing that melting water flowed east, correcting their location), engagement (supporting others), and determination (helping sustain the group). Years later, he became CEO of Argentina’s largest brewery, guided by the same human-centered motives that saved lives in the Andes.

Beyond Credentials: Emotional Intelligence and Adaptability

The author also reinforces Daniel Goleman’s theory that emotional intelligence (EI) far outweighs IQ and experience as a predictor of success. Referencing the famous “Marshmallow Test,” Fernández-Aráoz shows how self-control and social awareness at age four predicted higher lifelong achievement. In corporate terms, EI determines who manages complexity, thrives under pressure, and navigates relationships—crucial elements of real leadership. “We hire for the hard,” he quips, “and fire for the soft.”

Spotting and Developing Nonlinear Talent

Finally, Fernández-Aráoz encourages a bias toward unconventional résumés. People who’ve succeeded across varied industries or navigated big personal transitions often make better leaders in volatile environments. They exhibit the adaptability, resilience, and empathy needed for global collaboration. He cites examples from McKinsey, Unilever, and even Argentina’s own industrial giants, showing how nonlinear paths often signal creativity and growth potential. The leader’s job is to see possibility where others see imperfection.

In essence, finding the right people means searching for learners, not laureates. Pedigree may open doors, but potential builds empires.

Fernández-Aráoz argues that great leaders don’t just gather extraordinary individuals—they create systems of excellence. In Part Five, “Teams That Thrive,” he unveils a model developed with Egon Zehnder called the Team Effectiveness Review (TER), which evaluates six dimensions that determine whether teams rise or fracture under pressure: balance, alignment, resilience, energy, openness, and efficiency.

Turning Lone Wolves into Collaborative Hunters

Using cases from global banks to private equity firms, the author shows how even top performers fail if they can’t work together. One early insight comes from two investment banks in Argentina: one team of “stars” outperformed a rival group with identical credentials simply because they trusted one another and openly debated ideas. Fernández-Aráoz insists that “individual brilliance only scales through collective synergy.”

He also dismantles the “eat-what-you-kill” mentality common in professional services. Citing a Harvard study by Ashish Nanda, he contrasts firms that compensate individuals for solo achievement with those that reward collective outcomes. The most admired firms—like McKinsey and Zehnder itself—follow a lockstep model: they hire only A- and B-level players, reward collaboration, and let “lone wolves starve.” The result is long-term, scalable excellence.

Culture: The Invisible Force Multiplier

Beyond structure, the greatest teams are bound by culture—what Fernández-Aráoz calls “unconditional love.” During Argentina’s 2001 economic collapse, he recalls his firm’s leadership standing and applauding as colleagues promised to support one another no matter the losses. That moment of solidarity, he says, “defined the culture more powerfully than any strategy.” This conviction echoes Peter Drucker’s line: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

Diversity, Gender, and the Power of Difference

Thriving teams are also diverse. Drawing on McKinsey research, Fernández-Aráoz notes that companies in the top quartile of gender and nationality diversity on their executive boards show 50% higher ROEs. But diversity only works when inclusion follows: differing views must be understood and engaged, not just represented. He highlights cultural frameworks like Geert Hofstede’s five dimensions (power distance, individualism, uncertainty tolerance, masculinity, and long-term orientation) to help readers manage cross-cultural collaboration. He also dedicates a chapter to “The Female Opportunity,” arguing that untapped women leaders represent the world’s greatest economic and moral frontier—especially in emerging markets.

Together, these insights reinforce a single idea: teams become truly great not by hiring stars, but by creating environments where stars can depend on—and transform—each other.

The final section, “A Better Society,” expands Fernández-Aráoz’s thesis from boardrooms to nations. His argument becomes almost civic: the same principles that elevate teams and companies can heal governments, religions, and communities—if societies learn to make better people decisions at the top.

Choosing CEOs—and Presidents—with the Same Rigor

Corporate boards, he warns, often play “Russian roulette at the top.” Half of CEO successions are unplanned, and most directors have minimal experience evaluating leaders. The consequences are staggering: in Jim Collins’s How the Mighty Fall, leadership transition failures explain nearly every corporate collapse studied. Fernández-Aráoz pushes boards to adopt structured, long-range succession planning and rigorous assessment—treating the CEO role as the most consequential “who decision” of all.

He then extends this logic to political life. In “Electing Country Presidents,” he argues that democratic voters make even sloppier “who decisions” than boards, relying on emotion and familiarity rather than competence. Quoting research showing how partisan voters literally think less critically when hearing political rhetoric, he urges nations to “filter the unfiltered.” Society’s future, like business’s, depends on disciplined selection—favoring integrity, curiosity, humility, and team-building over charisma or dynasty.

From Singapore to the Vatican

Two vivid case studies prove his point. In Singapore and Jamaica, Fernández-Aráoz contrasts two nations that started identical in 1965 but diverged radically due to leadership choices. Singapore’s founder, Lee Kuan Yew, hired “the best of each generation”—technocrats chosen on merit and character—building a self-reinforcing system of excellence. Jamaica, mired in corruption and patronage, stagnated. The paradox underscores the book’s title perfectly: Singapore achieved wealth not because of what it had, but who it chose.

An even more unexpected example comes from the Catholic Church. In “The Pope,” Fernández-Aráoz recounts how he wrote to Rome after Benedict XVI’s resignation, urging the cardinals to select a leader with humility, adaptability, and people judgment—the core dimensions of potential. The election of Pope Francis, his fellow Argentine, drew global attention for precisely those traits. As Fernández-Aráoz observes, societies—like companies—transform when they choose leaders guided by purpose, not prestige.

In his conclusion, Fernández-Aráoz declares that humanity is entering its “fourth era of people decisions,” where potential, not pedigree, defines greatness. Whether you’re choosing a team member or a head of state, the same principle applies: success flows from surrounding yourself with the best—those capable of growing into the future. That, he suggests, is not merely a leadership strategy but a human one—a path toward a wiser, fairer, more sustainable world.