It is late Friday afternoon and my partners and I are commiserating about our struggles to find the exact candidates wanted by our clients. And since wallowing in self-blame is far less fun than attributing one’s woes to others, we enthusiastically point to our clients’ specifications as today’s source of our angst.
Now before you get the wrong idea, we are immensely appreciative of the work we receive and understand organizations’ desires to find the best possible executives for their firms. We also recognize that the bar of expectation is elevated when a company pays the big bucks to retain a headhunter to go searching on their behalf. And while we work with our clients to sort out the ‘must-have’ attributes from those that are just ‘nice to have’ it seems that we are regularly asked to search for candidates who embody equal portions of opposite qualities. Let me explain by using a few classic examples.
The Stupid-Smart Guy.
Clients often direct us to find and recruit the ‘best of the best’. The client’s market challenges are immense, the solutions complex, the potential enormous and only the smartest, most competent of executives will do. After said superstar has been identified, vetted, and found to be worthy, we invariably get down to negotiating the offer of employment. The initial document looks reasonable until the candidate examines the fine print regarding issues such as preferred shares that skew heavily to certain stakeholders and make it unlikely that the candidate will benefit financially from the fruits of his or her labor. When the candidate pushes back, the client reacts indignantly at the insolence.
Whether it is the compensation structure, elements of the corporate culture, or basic assumptions built into the business plan, candidates regularly analyze and weigh opportunities and judge them lacking. This sets up the somewhat challenging situation that the candidates coveted by our client do not covet them in return. As this is an unacceptable interpretation of reality for the client organization it sets up the Alice in Wonderland search for the smart candidate tinged with enough stupidity that they will overlook key aspects of the opportunity being presented to them.
The Master-Servant
We work with a lot of entrepreneurs. When they describe their ideal candidate who will support their quest for world domination, they use adjectives such as ‘take charge’, ‘action-oriented’, ‘strategic’, ‘self-starter’, ‘driver’, and ‘high performer’. They paint a picture of the prototypical ‘A’ player, the master of his organizational domain, the star.
Unfortunately, the star being recruited must thrive in an organization which already has a spotlight hogging organizational supernova who happens to be hands-on (“I am not a micromanager, I just like to know what is going on”), takes criticism personally and can be volatile (“only when people make me angry and it is never personal”). The well-intentioned entrepreneur sincerely intends to give the new employee a free hand, “as soon as he earns my trust, of course”.
Candidates need to understand that if they are going to be successful in an entrepreneur’s organization they must accommodate his idiosyncrasies, serve his needs, make him happy, keep him happy. Since a great many ‘A’ players struggle with this requirement, it sets up the search for the market facing conqueror who is concurrently docile and servant-like internally.
The Big Picture Detail-Oriented Guy
This is a scenario which starts at one end of the skill spectrum. The client asks for someone who will take on a series of strategic initiatives, corporate development, M&A or some combination of related duties. Or, the client asks for someone willing and able to sort through and fix a series of very tactical, detailed-oriented issues, processes or systems needed for the business to thrive.
At some point during the search, the client adds that the successful candidate should also be able to contribute at the other end of the spectrum. The big-picture person should also be detail-oriented, the back-room analyst should also venture out with customers. For those who visualize best with hockey metaphors this begins to take the shape of the fabled stay-at-home rushing defenseman. The reality of course is that people who reside comfortably at one end of the spectrum, rarely find pleasure at the other and thus the frustration begins.
There are many other such archetypes. There is the workaholic family man, the mercenary missionary, and the intuitive, creative process guy. And while one can laugh at the seeming absurdity of searching for opposites, the reality is much more serious as organizations genuinely try to reconcile their varied needs in a world which expects everyone to do more with less.
The answer usually lies in some middle way. In this instance, middle does not refer to the middle of a line of two opposites, but rather a centered understanding born from working through the competing issues and priorities, sampling the candidate market, and weighing tradeoffs. In the end, we are paid to assist in this process to help find that middle way.
Such a discussion is less fun than whining over a beer on a Friday afternoon…
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.
Searching for the Stay-At-Home Rushing Defenseman
August 8, 2008