Nick Saban is the head coach of the mens football team at the University of Alabama and winner of SIX national championships, but you likely already knew that. During a recent talk ahead of his team’s spring practices he laid out his goals for the upcoming fall season:

Love it! Get the right people on the bus, in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus. How simple, how effective! Almost like we’d heard it before…

Turns out this analogy cannot be credited to Coach Saban. And I have a hunch he’s spent some time with the individual who is properly credited with this concept. Enter one of the l-e-g-e-n-d-s of business research and theory: Jim Collins*. In his book Good To Great, paraphrased on his website here, is the “Bus” concept via this passage:

“The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. No, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it. They said, in essence, “Look, I don’t really know where we should take this bus. But I know this much: If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it someplace great.”

Now that sounds like a great model. We certainly don’t presuppose to have the answers here but, as managers, there are probably some thoughtful questions we can ask that might help guide us toward a smoother ride. Here are some ideas:

• Right People on the Bus 📈
  • Who are we hiring?
  • How are we building a complete team?
  • What are the expectations we’re setting?
  • What are the performance metrics we’re measuring?
• Right People in the Right Seats 🙋
  • Are we positioning team members to play to their strengths?
  • Are we adding diverse skills and perspectives amongst team members?
  • Are we incentivizing the right behaviors and promoting from within?
  • Is there a model for how the org chart will evolve over the next 6-12 months with additional team members?
• Wrong People Off the Bus 🚫
  • Are expectations being communicated clearly?
  • Is performance being tracked consistently?
  • Is feedback being given with candor and clarity?
  • Are we making courageous decisions when performance falls short?

Nothing too concrete necessarily, but context is essential to take us to a more specific model for your organization. So hopefully this is a start!

Anyone else wondering about about where to drive the bus? What our strategy is? Well, that topic is related (but separate) and will have to wait for another day. Let’s just get the lolligaggers off our bus first before we fire up the engine.

Do your job. And do your job well.

*Really enjoyed this interview with Jim Collins on Tim Ferriss’ podcast if you’d like to check it out!