Anyone who has ever hired people knows this challenge:
we never truly know who we’re bringing into the team.
Once someone joins, we usually discover two types of people:
1) Those who work.
2) Those who push the business forward.
Both groups matter — the first forms the connective tissue of the company.
But the second group… they are the true engine.
They move the business. They change its trajectory. They create momentum.
The problem?
Most people think they belong to group two.
Very few actually do.
Because pushing the business forward requires something incredibly rare:
deep analytical thinking.
And analytical thinking is hard. Painfully hard.
It means generating initial ideas, then putting them through internal stress-tests:
What’s good? What’s weak? What doesn’t make sense?
Then comes feasibility:
Can the team execute this? Do we have the skills, the knowledge, the budget?
If the idea survives all that — only then does the real work begin.
Writing the idea down clearly enough for the rest of the company to understand it.
Building a team around it.
Driving the project, challenging your own assumptions,
challenging the team, maintaining quality, energy and speed.
People who can do this — the true “pushers” — know exactly what I’m talking about.
It’s demanding. Draining. And rare.
And this is where the CEO’s biggest challenge begins:
How do you surround yourself with as many of these people as possible?
The ones who take ownership.
The ones who roll up their sleeves.
The ones who think, question, analyze, improve and push.
Not because someone told them to — but because they can’t imagine working any other way.
These are the people who deserve ESOP.
These are the people who deserve the manager’s time, trust and attention.
At Koykan, we’re trying to build a team of such pushers.
It’s not easy. For two reasons:
a) There simply aren’t many of them.
b) Most people believe they have these qualities — and they don’t.
Which means time, reshuffling, tough conversations, and yes, letting some people go or moving them into roles where they contribute as support rather than as drivers.
Do you agree that these people are rare?
Is analytical thinking simply one of those abilities the universe distributed in very limited quantities?