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Nothing is more important to the success of a CEO’s career than making great people decisions, warns author and consultant at Egon Zehnder International Claudio Fernández-Aráoz in an interview with CEO Forum Group. “Almost everything you can achieve will depend on the people you choose to fill key roles, so your personal reputation, rewards, and recognition are critically dependent on the people choices you make”, explains the author of GREAT PEOPLE DECISIONS. Research has also shown people decisions to be the single most controllable factor in creating organisational value, he adds. Taking a people decision should be a disciplined process based on a systematic review of a position’s key requirements and the candidates available, not a snap judgement based on intuition, argues the author. Following a proven recruitment process also boosts the success rate of making people decisions consistently, he notes. CEOs attempting to create an organisation that is successful in dealing with talent should spend 30-50 percent of their time on people, fight to break down organisational boundaries for recruitment purposes and review key people decisions one or two years down the line to assess their success, advises Fernández-Aráoz. This should enable the CEO to assess which managers have the best judgement and will encourage all executives to approach the recruitment process more carefully, he concludes.