Chapter 3 — People
Felix on managing people
The chapter opens with disarming honesty: Felix says it took him decades to learn how to manage people well. He was a visionary leader with strong communication and sales skills — and rubbish as a manager. The chapter is grounded in the lessons of those mistakes.
The simple weekly one-to-one agenda
A thirty-minute weekly 1-2-1 with three even slices:
- Ten minutes — you: how the team member is doing.
- Ten minutes — the company: how their work is contributing.
- Ten minutes — me: what they need from the manager.
Felix calls this "infinitely easier" than the unstructured catch-ups most agencies default to.
Brilliant people who fit
"Brilliant people means brilliant people who will fit."
The chapter is firm that brilliance alone is not enough. Felix tells the story of brilliant people who didn't share his values, brilliant people who went in different directions, and brilliant people who turned into "Pied Pipers" — leading entire departments away from the company's direction. His advice on that last case is uncomfortable: the only cure is to fire the entire department. "That kind of toxicity, if you've allowed it to manifest itself at all, can't be cured, only cauterised."
Show the Strategy Map at interview
Felix shows the Strategy Map to potential hires. Occasionally a candidate looks at it and tells him they don't see themselves at a company that will be three times bigger; that is useful information. The hires who do see themselves there are the ones who help build it.
The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies example
The worked Roadmap example for the People segment is a unifying People goal of being recognised on the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For list. The chapter shows how that single goal cascades into a set of Year-1 actions — recruitment processes, training programmes, internal communications and the like — each of which becomes a task with measurable outputs and an accountable owner.
The People → Sales & Marketing link
Better-motivated staff make fewer mistakes that lead to revenue loss. Beyond that, happier people make customers happier. Several of the Roadmap's People tasks (training, retention, leadership development) are therefore prerequisites for Sales & Marketing growth tasks.