First Who, Then What: People before structure

There is a finding from management research that surprised even the researchers themselves: the most successful companies do not first define their strategy and then look for the right people. They do it the other way round: first get the right people on board, then decide together where to go.

Jim Collins calls this principle “First Who, Then What". It is the second step in his book Good to Great, based on the systematic analysis of companies that made the leap from solid to outstanding. The researchers had expected the opposite order. What they found instead was unambiguous: the decisive variable was not the strategy, but the people.

I single out this principle because here, in my own career, I have seen the biggest gap between theory and practice. Many leaders agree with the concept immediately and then act differently anyway.

How it usually plays out in practice

In most companies, the structure is set first: strategy, org chart, goals, job descriptions. Then the open positions are filled with leaders who must fit into a tight corset of required competencies: “Must have built a backend system." “Needs experience in online marketing." “At least five years of leadership experience in the industry."

Sometimes long-serving employees are rewarded or get a chance to prove themselves in new positions. That is humanly understandable. It has little to do with “First Who, Then What" though.

What happens when you flip it

In the early 2000s I took on a project that was strategically important for my company: achieving a technological breakthrough together with an Asian partner. The “what", meaning the precise goal, was deliberately not narrowly defined.

I had two weeks to put together a team to fly to Asia with me. I picked a project lead with intercultural experience, a systems architect as the technical expert, and a buyer from our Chinese organisation. Together we developed the requirements and sharpened them further with the partner's team.

The decisive point: because every team member helped shape the goals, they identified with them fully. That is not a soft feeling, it is a hard competitive advantage. Because what happens when you first set the goal, hire the best people for exactly that goal, and then the market shifts? Teams that helped shape the goal are also more flexible in adapting.

The question Collins doesn't answer

Collins' research convincingly shows that the right people matter more than the right strategy. But he leaves one question largely open: what makes someone the “right" person for a particular organisation?

The obvious answer, namely competence, experience, track record, falls short. The longer I worked in leadership teams, the more convinced I became: you need people whose values and goals fit those of the other team members. That matters more than this or that specific competency, which can still be acquired. But how do you know which values “fit"?

This is where a second book comes in that takes Collins' principle in a surprising direction.

The colours of the organisation

In Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux describes the developmental stages of organisations, from the oldest forms of human cooperation to the most modern. He assigns each stage a colour:

Red stands for impulsive organisations, where power is exercised through strength and fear. Metaphor: a wolf pack. The boss decides, the rest follow. Today this form is still found in some early-stage start-ups or in criminal organisations.

Amber stands for conformist organisations with strict hierarchies, clear roles and stable processes. Metaphor: an army. Everyone knows their place, deviation is not tolerated. Found in public administration, the military, the Catholic church, and also in many traditional mid-sized German companies.

Orange stands for achievement-oriented organisations geared towards competition, innovation and growth. Metaphor: a machine. Talent is the decisive resource, career is the drive. Most large corporations operate at this stage, and most of my clients come from this environment.

Green stands for pluralistic organisations that emphasise values, consensus and the inclusion of all stakeholders. Metaphor: a family. Hierarchies still exist but are softened by participation and a values orientation. Typical of NGOs and values-driven mid-sized businesses.

Teal stands for evolutionary organisations built on self-management, wholeness and an evolving purpose. Metaphor: a living organism. No fixed hierarchies, no rigid job descriptions, instead distributed authority and fluid roles. Companies like Buurtzorg, Patagonia or Morning Star operate at this stage.

Laloux stresses that no stage is better or worse than another. Each is appropriate for a particular context. And most organisations contain elements from several stages at once.

The connection rarely drawn

Now to the cross-link I find hardly anywhere in the literature, and which preoccupies me as a coach: when Collins says “First Who, Then What", then we have to ask: “Who" for what kind of organisation?

Because the colour of the organisation fundamentally determines which person thrives there and which one fails.

A person who shines in an orange achievement organisation, ambitious, competitive, career-conscious, may well fail in a teal self-managed organisation. Not because they are incompetent, but because the organisation demands something different: not assertion but letting go. Not control but trust. Not individual winning but collective growing.

Conversely, someone who blooms in a green, values-oriented organisation, consensus-oriented, empathetic, patient, will sink in an orange high-performance culture. The values are not wrong; the organisation simply does not reward this way of working.

So the “Who" in “First Who, Then What" is not an absolute category. It is relative to the colour of the organisation. The right people for an army are different from the right people for a family. And the right people for a machine are different from the right people for a living organism.

What this means for leaders

For leaders building teams, this insight has a very practical consequence: before you ask which competencies and experience a new team member must bring, ask yourself which colour your organisation has and which colour it wants to have.

If your organisation is in a transformation, say from Orange to Green or from Green to Teal, then you need people capable of co-creating that transition. Those are often not the people who were most successful in the old system.

And when you are looking for new members of your team, I recommend trusting your gut especially in the selection process. Sometimes a person fits perfectly on paper, but after the second conversation it doesn't feel right anymore. That feeling is often a signal that the values do not match the culture. My only advice: follow that feeling.

Equally, sometimes a CV gives you a good feeling even though some desired criteria are not met. My advice: meet them anyway. Because a team only becomes more than the sum of its members when a team spirit emerges that develops its own dynamics. That dynamic is worth orders of magnitude more than the individual competence of any single team member.

In football you see it regularly: nominally weaker teams are suddenly extraordinarily successful, while squads bought together full of superstars fail to win the Champions League.

Further reading

• Jim Collins: Good to Great (HarperBusiness 2001) – Source of the "First Who, Then What" principle from research on top-performing companies.
• Frederic Laloux: Reinventing Organizations (Nelson Parker 2014) – Official source on the colour model; the illustrated version is a good entry point.
• My book Peter mag keinen Frosch zum Frühstück (Amazon) – This article is based on a chapter from it.