Back in 1982, Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman, Jr. came out with their bestseller “In Search of Excellence”. In the book, they wrote about a number of corporations and what made them great. Before “In Search of Excellence”, Peter Drucker, who was known as “the father of modern management”, came out with a number of management related books such as “The Effective Executive”, “The Practice of Management”, and “Management”. His books were written in the 1950’s and 1960’s and he went on to write a number of others until he died in 2006.

Management theory and practice has been around for quite awhile before Drucker’s time and during the late 1980’s and thereon, there was an “explosion” of books written on leadership, management, and organizational theory. Jim Collins came out with “From Good to Great”, Ken Blanchard with “The One Minute Manager” series, John C. Maxwell with his “Leadership” series, and Steven Covey with “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and later, “The Eighth Habit”. Even Alpha came out with a series of “The Complete Idiot’s Guides” in management and leadership. Wiley’s “Dummies” series is no exception.

If you check www.amazon.com or www.bn.com, you will find a countless number of books. Basically, we are overwhelmed with tons of information on the same subjects where sometimes you feel you need a life jacket to keep you from drowning.

During the late 1960’s, a sophomore was sitting in his football team’s locker room one Friday evening just before the game. Before he was about to head to the field with his high school football team, he saw a sign over the door leading to the field saying:

“Some people try to find things in this game and put things into it that don't exist. Football is only two things – it’s blocking and tackling. I don’t care anything about formations or tricks on defense. You block and tackle better than the team you are playing, you’ll win!” ~Vince Lombardi

Lombardi had the right football players. With the right players, he built strong offense and defense football teams during his coaching career. He also had the right assistant coaches and the right plays. His teams won 5 NFL championships including the first two Super Bowls.

Football is a game. So is business. Everyday, businesses are competing against other businesses. Products go against other products. Chief Executive Officers know that if his or her business controls the market and maintains it, the enterprise is winning.

So what does it take to make a great organization? What does it take to win the business game? As James Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase was once quoted in Fortune magazine, you need just four things. Only four things which are (1) the right people, (2) the right products/services, (3) the right systems, and (4) the right risk/internal controls. It does not matter what things you try to put into the business game. The right people will take care of the products/services. The right people will implement the right systems. The right people will implement strong risk and internal controls. And, the right people will make a great organization.

You ask, who are the right people? There are many ways to determine who are the right people. If you have read Kelly Perdew’s book, “Take Command”, you will agree that the right person lives by the following 10 principles: duty, impeccability, passion, perseverance, planning, teamwork, loyalty, flexibility, selfless service and integrity. Everything else you can think of will fall into one of the ten.

Again, as Lombardi once said,

It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever - the one who recognizes the challenges and does something about it.

Become a doer, accept the challenge, and do something about it. You will end up being an achiever and help make your organization great.