6 ideas
Managers should not be able to unilaterally hire, fire, rate performance, promote, or set pay for their teams. Removing these decisions from a single person's discretion and routing them through committees or peer input reduces bias and prevents managers from using power arbitrarily.
Invest disproportionately in hiring rather than training, because it is easier to select great people than to develop average ones. Set the bar so that every new hire is better than the median current employee in their role, even if this means leaving positions open longer.
Unstructured interviews predict job performance poorly and mostly measure interviewer bias and first impressions. Using consistent, predetermined questions with calibrated scoring rubrics across all candidates dramatically improves the accuracy of hiring decisions.
Top performers can contribute exponentially more than average ones, so compensation should be highly unequal rather than tied closely to tenure or title. Paying the best people far more than their peers in the same role retains them and reflects their actual differential impact.
Combining performance reviews used for pay and promotion with conversations meant to help people grow causes employees to defend themselves rather than learn. Holding these conversations at different times decouples the threat of judgment from the openness needed for genuine improvement.
Behavior changes more reliably by altering the surrounding environment than by exhorting people to act differently. Smaller plates, repositioned food, and timely informational reminders shift choices at scale without mandates by making the desired option the path of least resistance.