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Ken Iverson
David Maxwell was the Level 5 Leader who led Fannie Mae through its period of good-to-great transformation. Maxwell’s decision to focus on hiring decisions even as his company lost enormous amounts of money daily is Collins’s most forceful example of the need to find the right people before deciding on a strategy.
David Maxwell Quotes in Good to Great
The Good to Great quotes below are all either spoken by David Maxwell or refer to David Maxwell. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
Maxwell made it absolutely clear that there would only be seats for A players who were going to put forth an A+ effort, and if you weren’t up for it, you had better get off the bus, and get off now. One executive who had just uprooted his life and career to join Fannie Mae came to Maxwell and said, “I listened to you very carefully, and I don’t want to do this.” He left and went back to where he came from. In all, fourteen of twenty-six executives left the company, replaced by some of the best, smartest, and hardest-working executives in the entire world of finance.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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David Maxwell Quotes in Good to Great
The Good to Great quotes below are all either spoken by David Maxwell or refer to David Maxwell. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
Maxwell made it absolutely clear that there would only be seats for A players who were going to put forth an A+ effort, and if you weren’t up for it, you had better get off the bus, and get off now. One executive who had just uprooted his life and career to join Fannie Mae came to Maxwell and said, “I listened to you very carefully, and I don’t want to do this.” He left and went back to where he came from. In all, fourteen of twenty-six executives left the company, replaced by some of the best, smartest, and hardest-working executives in the entire world of finance.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
