Recently I was asked to interview several candidates competing for a senior management role. The company in question had acquired several firms and was looking to align the disparate, distributed and increasingly dysfunctional engineering teams behind a common direction and leader.
All of the candidates knew the others setting up the interesting dynamic that each was able to tailor their ‘pitch’ with not only the requirements of the role in mind but also the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the others candidates.
Each candidate brought different portfolios of qualifications. Several focused on their academic credentials, their many degrees and the obvious intellectual gifts these spoke to. Presumably, such intellectual horsepower would be applied to solving the structural and logistical problems at hand. Others spoke of their track record of innovation and their international reputations. Still others pointed to the world-class companies in which they had been trained and how their understanding of ‘best practice’ could enhance the processes, systems and metrics of the overall engineering organization. One candidate argued that the ‘power’ embedded in the Senior Vice-President role would equip him to push the requisite changes through the company.
But the person who impressed the most said none of these things. In some ways he was the least credentialed with some gaping holes in his experience. But what he had was an attitude and approach that the others did not. He was the only one who spoke of people, of the culture of the various engineering groups, their history, their needs and fears. He spoke of the role not in terms of processes, coercion, intellect, patents, or power but rather in terms of helping the various groups find a common path. He spoke of earning trust, of teasing out a common direction, of energizing people, of helping them deal with the uncertainty of the recent changes undertaken by their organizations. He could see the organizational big picture, was sensitive to the messiness of change and spoke best to how he would deal with it. He also saw opportunities rather than problems, the excitement in the journey. He was also the only person who had gone through this type of journey before and could speak in detail about what he had learned from that experience.
Titles, degrees and resumes do not a leader who can deal with these types of situations. Nor does simply the ability to diagnose problems and prescribe solutions. It is instead the ability to sell them, to mobilize people, align them, improve them and help them realize their individual goals within the larger goals of the company. Most of the candidates were oblivious to the simple fact that as you rise in organizations, technical skills, intellect, problem solving and authority are reduced from differentiators to table stakes. Navigating the complexities of corporate life increasingly demands attributes such as judgment, organizational savvy, empathy, influencing skills, judgment, team skills and other soft skills begin to dominate. As Michael Douglas so eloquently says of his adversary in the movie The American President, “Bob’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t get it. Bob’s problem is that he can’t sell it”.
Looking for a dynamic HR role? Stay away from the entrepreneurial tech sector.
January 1, 2012
In a recent survey of HR graduate students, the technology sector rated among the most coveted destinations to ply their trade. It is viewed as a world of innovative people, technologies and approaches where progressive talent management, OB/OD and related HR work awaits.
The Cry to Replace RIM's CEOs – A Truly Dumb Idea
October 13, 2011
Leaving aside the recent service outages, the shellacking of RIM in the press is a tad surreal to behold.
For the few Luddites not familiar with the firm, Research in Motion is the successful Canadian smart phone pioneer with revenues of $20bb per year, no debt and cash in the bank. They manufacture products that remain popular around the world and continue to boast technological innovations unmatched by any competitor. Their most recently launched smart phone devices have been well reviewed and appear to be selling well. And though the company's first version of its new tablet, the Playbook, has room for improvement, it is a promising piece of technology.
Context: When Companies Confuse Start-up Experience for Start-up Experience
October 7, 2011
I had the occasion this week to chat with an entrepreneur still licking his wounds from a stalled startup venture. His tale is a reminder of how easily companies misunderstand organizational context when hiring. For startups, such a misunderstanding can be fatal.
The CEO Hiring Practices at HP
October 3, 2011
The press tells us that Hewlett Packard is the largest technology company in the world with revenues of $126bb. Impressive as those numbers may appear, they do not seem to impress HP's Board of Directors. You see they do not believe that any of the firm's 324,600 employees are capable of leading it. Not one person. Not this year or last year when CEO changes were made. In fact they were apparently not capable six years ago or even eleven years ago when CEO changes were also made. But before summarily indicting the firm's succession planning/leadership development programs, it is useful to consider the track record of the external candidates who were considered better choices than the firm's internal candidates. This analysis decidedly shifts the spotlight to the competence of Hewlett Packard's Board of Directors.
The Folly of Believing What You Read
September 19, 2011
Some time ago we posted a blog titled ‘So you REALLY want to be a CEO?' which looked at the human costs of climbing the upper rungs of the management ladder. The blog was based on a series of articles immediately following the ‘resignation' of Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler. All of these articles presented a cautionary tale of life in the fast lane, the long hours, the extensive global travel, and the shareholder pressures that accompany an uncooperative stock price. They also spoke poignantly of the physical and emotional toll that such unrelenting pressure took on the Pfizer CEO who eventually resigned in order to attend to his family and health. As it turns out however, much of this narrative may not have been true
Before sending us your resume (and then getting frustrated with us) ask who we work for
July 25, 2011
A friend of mine is a trustee in bankruptcy. As his title suggests, he and his firm serves those contemplating the ‘cleansing' process of personal bankruptcy. Potential customers compare service providers, select one, and then pay the chosen firm a fee to initiate and manage the ensuing process on their behalf. However, as soon as the relief-seeking customer signs on the dotted line, the trustee's allegiance shifts to the creditors for whom they then seek to maximize debt recovery. This shift in who works for whom must be a tad unsettling for people who already have a heap of problems and stress on their hands.
What Dating Services Can Teach Companies About Hiring
June 1, 2011
Executive-level hiring is a decidedly aspirational endeavor. Organizations idealize their workplace cultures, select for attributes that will fit into those romanticized environments, and then immerse unsuspecting hires into their ice-cold reality of their works-in-progress.
How to Survive a Startup - by Jill Ram
April 20, 2011
If you're an executive and you're thinking of joining a start-up, know what stage of a start-up to join. If the company is in its first year or so, don't expect to make significant changes. If you join after the company is somewhat established and mistakes have been made and learned from, you'll likely be more successful from the outset. If the founder has stepped aside, well, by then, the company is likely not considered a start-up anymore. It won't be functioning like a big company yet, and it won't have all the structure in place that it needs, but it will be run with more practicality and with less emotion. Timing is everything so choose it well.
Good News for the Old, Overqualified and Overlooked
March 18, 2011
It is expected that a significant percentage of the baby boomer generation will drive right past the Freedom 55 highway exit. For many the goal of early retirement will have proven to be unattainable hype, while for others the ups and downs of working will appear more attractive than the prospects of working up and down the local lawn bowling leadership board.
Pressed for time? Blame those Benedictine Monks.
February 24, 2011
It is among the principal reasons candidates tell us they are open to consider a change in employers. They are tethered to it, yet somehow it still flees. It is time, the most precious of resources, and for many harried executives they want some of it back.
Though their relationship with time may be strained, it is worth pointing out that it was not always this way. In his fascinating book Time Wars, Jeremy Rifkin chronicles the evolution of our modern relationship with time. He points out that in traditional agrarian and pastoral cultures, time was a very naturalistic notion maintained in cyclical, repetitive, biological and even sacred terms. The ‘passing of time' was cued via the changing seasons, biological lifecycles and lunar patterns and thus, the cadence and tempo of those societies were finely tuned to the cyclical rhythms of their physical environments. As he states, "Our early ancestors coveted the circle, perceiving time as eternal return, a ceaseless repetition of an endless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth". Since these cyclical rhythms could neither be accelerated, nor altered, the cadence of these societies' was natural and harmonious.
Why some executives are simply more effective
May 8, 2009