Morton Mandel & John Byrne 
It’s All About Who You Hire, How They Lead…and Other Essential Advice from a Self-Made Leader 

American business leader, entrepreneur, and noted philanthropist Morton Mandel shares lessons he gleaned from co-founding and leading, along with his brothers Jack and Joe, Premier Industrial Corporation, a major industrial parts and electronic components manufacturer and distributor. Now for readers everywhere who are interested in studying leadership development, It’s All About Who describes Mandel’s approach to finding, recruiting and cultivating ‘A’ players.

In his book, Mandel shares his fine-tuned set of practices to develop leaders that have proven to deliver dramatically better results. Containing sixteen core sections, ‘It’s All About Who’ covers key strategic topics from ‘Building a Rich, Deep, and Ethical Culture’ to ‘Killing Yourself for Your Customer’ to ‘Using Business Ideas in the Social Sector.’

What makes Mandel unique is his selflessness in pursuing a life of purpose. Mandel has lived in two worlds: the world of profit and the world of social impact. Even as chairman and CEO of a New York Stock Exchange company for more than three decades, he spent as much as a third of his time in the social sector.

Mandel has personally founded more than a dozen non-profit organizations. His deep-seated passion is evident in the mission of his Foundation: ‘To invest in people with the values, ability and passion to change the world.’

Table of Content

Editor’s note by Warren Bennis xiii

Foreword by John A. Byrne xv

Prologue xxi

1 It’s All About Who 1

2 The ABC’s of People 11

3 Building a Rich, Deep, and Ethical Culture 21

4 What Happens When You Ignore Culture, People, and Values 33

5 What I Learned from Peter Drucker 51

6 Killing Yourself for Your Customer 69

7 Principles Make a Difference 79

8 Factbooks: Key to Personal Discipline 89

9 Why We Swung Our Acquisitions Bat to Hit Singles, Not Home Runs 95

10 Lighting Candles 103

11 A Gospel of Wealth 115

12 Using Business Ideas in the Social Sector 121

13 An Olive Tree 129

14 Yes, I Can! 137

15 Some Beacons to Steer By 147

16 If I Could Do It Over Again . . . 157

Appendix 163

Acknowledgments 173

The authors 179

Index 181

About the author

MORTON L. MANDEL is a self-made billionaire, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. With his brothers, Jack and Joseph, he cofounded Premier Industrial Corporation in 1940, eventually merging it with Farnell Electronics in a $3 billion deal. The three Mandel brothers also established the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation (www.mandelfoundation.org), which funds numerous social leadership initiatives all over the world.

JOHN A. BYRNE is former executive editor of Business Week, former editor in chief of Fast Company, and author of ten books, including the New York Times best seller Jack: Straight from the Gut with Jack Welch.

For more on effective leadership, visit www.Morton Mandel.com.