Why is this so important? One answer is because the jobs at those upper reaches are so complicated. This may sound obvious, but consider the following. The more complex the job, the greater the spread between average performance and outstanding performance. On average, a “star” assembly line worker is 40% more productive than his or her peers. But when it comes to a high-complexity job such as a computer programmer or an account manager in a professional services firm, a star performer may be as much as 1,000% more effective than an average performer. What does this suggest about, say, an average Secretary of Treasury vs. a stellar Secretary of Treasury?

Unfortunately, finding great people isn’t easy. The late Peter Drucker believed that the typical executive bats no better than .333 when it comes to making hiring and promotion decisions. That’s more than good enough for baseball; it’s nowhere near good enough for running a great company—or country.

Why do we fail at people decisions two times out of three? The main problem is that we are asking an old brain to do a new job. Our hardwired brains—designed to help us survive as nomadic hunter-gatherers—don’t mesh well with our current challenges. In particular, a series of emotional biases, hidden deep in our unconscious minds, work against us, and unfortunately, they bear strongly on our people decisions.

For example, because of our hard wiring, we procrastinate about people decisions. We exaggerate the risks of change and disregard the opportunity cost of the status quo. And when we do act, we are inclined toward snap judgments. Research from the neurosciences has revealed that we form an initial unconscious impression of the person in front of us at lightning speed—on the order of one-twentieth of a second—but unfortunately, such impressions are long on snap and short on judgment. On a more conscious level, we are inclined to place far too much value on brands and labels (such as educational background or political affiliation) and far too little on substance.

If I had the ear of the President-elect, I’d suggest four steps:

• Do the hard work.

There is enormous pressure on incoming Administrations to staff up and hit the ground running. The “First 100 Days” clock is ticking from Day One. Everyone is looking for results within the first months, or even weeks, of taking charge. To make things worse many people believe that, if the President fails to achieve a lot within the first 100 days, he will never be able to regain credibility. This is dead wrong. The best CEOs take significant amount of time to set up the right teams and together with these teams make the right diagnostics—before jumping into crucial change initiatives. Even when taking charge of troubled companies, the best take their time to make sure that they are fighting the right battles in the right ways. When making people decisions, they don’t just bring rapidly on board the people they know—or those they owe favors. Rather, the best corporate leaders cast a wide net and conduct in-depth assessments of the strongest looking candidates. The new President and his people-finders have to approach this all-important process with the highest level of attention, discipline, and patience. Go slow to go fast.

• Use multiple screens.

Relevant experience is a good initial screen, since there’s no time for on-the-job training. (Ask Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson.) Move from there to integrity. (If they’re not squeaky clean, they’re out.) Then look to competence: Were they any good, as they amassed all that experience? Finally, look beyond the standard measures of intelligence, such as I.Q., test scores, class ranks, and the like. You need to scrutinize the ways in which leaders have managed themselves and their relationships with others. This is by far the most important predictor of success or failure in any senior leadership role.

• Worry about the team.

It’s not all about the great Secretary of Whatever. It’s also about his or her lieutenants—and their lieutenants. Remember that outstanding teams require not only strong skill sets, but also significant diversity to avoid the risks of herding and group-think. The ability to pick great people with complementary skills should be a key factor for success for the new President-elect as well as for each of his key appointments.

• Invest in the political positions as well as in the permanent professional staff.

Too many politicians overvalue the former and undervalue the latter. But you just can’t build lasting greatness without staffing the Administration with competent professionals at all levels, including young staffers with potentials who will continue strengthening the country long after the Presidential mandate is over. At the time of its independence, Singapore’s founding fathers realized that without natural resources or scale its only way to grow was to invest in talent. They systematically have attracted the best people, both to key political appointments and its exemplary civil service, for over four decades now. As a result, since 1965 Singapore’s gross national product per capita multiplied by a factor of eight in real terms (constant dollars), while that in the U.S. multiplied by a factor of less than three.

Navigating the financial storm is just one of the many challenges the new President will face. Ensuring that the U.S. can compete successfully in a global marketplace populated by increasingly skilled national rivals is another. Yet of all the challenges, making the right decisions about people is among the most important. If President-elect Obama fails at that, his ability to succeed in anything else is severely compromised.