in corporate experience. Billy’s actions, taken fifty years ago, have
been validated in that CTI owes much of its success to its structure,
carefully conceived to be appropriate to its mission.Expect Stormy Weather
While we’re quoting Drucker, let’s add this: “As every execu-
tive has learned, nothing new is easy. It always gets into trouble.”
Certainly that was true with the launch and first years of
Christianity Today. Drucker says the only effective means to bail
out new endeavors when they run into “heavy weather” is to
have “people who have proven their capacity to perform.” That’s
why the new dream can’t rely on rookies, no matter how smart
or highly motivated. It takes veterans who have been through
previous tough times themselves and won’t care when thunder-
heads roll in. Billy knew CTwas an important project, so he built
a critical mass of strong leaders with deep commitments to see
the projects through, no matter what squalls threatened to cap-
size the boat.
In Filling the Bus, Go with Your Gut
The chapter in Jim Collins’s Good to Greattitled “First, Who...
Then, What” emphasizes the vital importance of getting “the right
people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus).” Collins
says that’s the first priority, and he documents it well. For
instance, he quotes an executive from Circuit City, who was asked
to name the top five factors that led from mediocrity to excellence,
as saying, “One would be people. Two would be people. Three
would be people. Four would be people. And five would be
people. A huge part of our transition can be attributed to our dis-
cipline in picking the right people.”
Collins also echoes Drucker with his “practical discipline”
statement: “Put your best people on your biggest opportunities,
not your biggest problems.”
But in developing the new concept and “putting legs under it,”
how does one connect, identify, and recruit? In Billy’s launching
and leading of CTI, he was in a unique position to recruit the right
The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham