Powerful investment groups don't invest in companies; they invest in people. People are the most important ingredient in any organization. At the heart of high-performance organizations is management that obtains the willing cooperation of others to achieve its goals. To gain the willing cooperation of others, employees must see that management genuinely cares about them, that they can trust management's word, and that management focuses on distinction in all aspect of the business. I once worked for a company whose upper management failed in all those respects. At this company, management continually changed policies, to the point that the sales team no longer trusted its leadership. Sales reps came late to meetings and were unprepared. In short, the message management sent to the sales force was that they didn't care, were not to be trusted, and were not committed to building a powerful business. This company had a continual revolving door of salespeople, and it eventually failed. Another common mistake is not acting on low performers fast enough. In every failed business I have worked with, I have found a number of salespeople who should have been moved to another position. You do no favors by keeping a failing employee around, unless you are confident a correction can be effected. One word of caution, though: most failing businesses do not have metrics that effectively judge individual sales performance, so care should be taken when identifying low and high performers. Another error-the reverse of too few terminations-is aggressive termination. To avoid both extremes, remember that it isn't who you fire that counts but who you hire. The proper hire will not need to be terminated. Always look for a track record of success in candidates. Hiring the proper people and creating a culture of mutual trust is a vital component of good people management.