Posted tagged ‘CEO’
June 13, 2010
When you think about it, the amount of time devoted to the hiring process is pretty insignificant. This is ironic given that it is one of the most critical decisions made at any company. Perhaps, there are a few hours, or at best, a few days devoted to screening, interviewing and reference checking.
The process really cries out for a method – some way of determining whether the individual was appropriate for the position and for the culture. Such an opportunity presented itself in recent weeks and it afforded me the opportunity to create such an approach.
I have always found that having multiple people interview a candidate is extremely important. Everyone has “blindspots,” areas that are not important to them or areas that they are willing to gloss over. Multiple interviewers tend to mitigate this problem and force dialogue during the assessment process.
A COO recently invited me to participate in the selection of a new leader for one of his operating companies. In order to gain as close to a full perspective of the candidates, it was agreed that his focus would include prior industry work experience. The dimension that I hoped to contribute was an assessment of managerial style and knowledge in what was important in running a company
To prepare for my role in the interview, I organized this plan.
- Pre-work
- Deciding what to evaluate
- Building a way for capturing the information
- Designing the interview questions
- Preparing the introduction so that the interviewee can be engaged and comfortable
- Providing the assessment
The pre-work stage was devoted to understanding what the company provides, the culture of the company, the background of the candidates and what the heart of the assignment was.
Understanding the “heart of the assignment,” is perhaps the most critical element in this stage. Every leadership style has its place. A young team may need a patient mentor. A seasoned team may need an expert guide. An undisciplined team might do best with a firm leader dedicated to creating structure. In short, when looking for a leader, the answer to who is the right candidate is often, “it depends…”
In the next post, we’ll continuing reviewing these stages.
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Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategic Plans, Strategy
Tags: alignment triangle, assessment, blindspots, CEO, coo, evaluation, executives, Hiring, Interviewing, interviews, jobs, leaders, leadership styles, Management, method
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March 2, 2009
With each passing day, we learn of more layoffs and furloughed employees. Today, more than ever, service and professional organizations need to determine the resources needed to complete projects so that they are staffed appropriately. Not surprisingly, there is a method by which one can accomplish this goal.
To do so, one begins by looking outward and assessing the projects that one wishes to address over a discrete period of time. Evaluate what is a priority or even an emergency project. These are the projects that absolutely must be accomplished for the well-being or growth of the business. Consider how long each project will take to complete.
Then segment the remaining projects into ones that would be nice to complete as they would add some value and then ones that are critical to the growth of the company. Your focus should be to address the priority projects, then the long term growth ones and then the “nice to haves.” By organizing the projects in this manner, the ability to address some of the longer term projects will present themselves as well.
From there, one should assess the type of staff required to complete the project. Do not think of terms of names of individuals within your company; rather, think in terms of roles. This is important because when one thinks of individuals, there is a tendency to not recognize that a particular person lacks a necessary skill or to minimize the importance of that person missing the skill. Make certain that you understand the skills required within each role.
Out of this exercise, a pattern will emerge. You will begin to discover that certain skills are required over the long term and certain skills are needed temporarily. You will also learn, based on the lengths of the projects, whether you need more than one individual with certain skills.
Once the roles have been identified, it is time to inventory the skills of your team. Do you have the right people and the right mix of professionals to complete the tasks at hand? Are their skills mature or do the lack the appropriate experience?
After completing this analysis, you will be in a better position to determine if you wish to recruit or buy additional talent, rent or have a consultant supplement your team to address a short term need, or provide additional training so that members of your team can acquire the skills.
Each of these alternatives has their place within the solution set. A short-term need or the immediate requirement for expertise and depth may necessitate that the most appropriate and economical alternative is using a consultant (the “rent” approach). A longer term or less pressing need may allow for an investment in training and augmenting the skills of your staff. A need that you believe will be required for years to come may result in your organization pursing the recruitment or buying talent option.
In our next post, we’ll contemplate whether to recruit talent that has less experience and may be less costly or talent that has more experience and a higher price tag.
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Categories: Crisis Management, Hiring, Leadership, Sales, Strategic Plans, Strategy
Tags: assessments, Barack Obama, CEO, economy, firing, Hiring, HSBC, inventory, layoffs, Leadership, Management, Priorities, professional, projects, service, staffing, Strategy, Warren Buffett
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January 21, 2009
Professor Watkins emphasizes the importance of matching strategy to the situation appropriately. The author says that there are essentially four types of business situations that new leaders must address.
Each business situation has different characteristics, challenges, and opportunities. Yet, every business has a portfolio of situations. A new leader must figure out which situations fall into each category. He calls this the STaRS model.
1) Start-up: There isn’t much existing infrastructure to build on. The new leader must assemble the capabilities including people, funding and technology to get a project or business off the ground. Among other things, to be successful, he must do things right from the beginning, energize people about the possibilities and focus on learning about the technical issues, products, markets, technologies, projects, and strategies. Early wins are putting the right team together and achieving strategic focus as well as determining what not to do and building discipline within the organization.
2) Turnaround: Like the start-up, there isn’t much existing infrastructure to build on. The new leader should take on a unit or group that is in trouble and get it back on track. She or he accomplishes this by cutting it down to a defendable core fast and then beginning to build it back up. Among other things, to be successful, the focus should be on reenergizing demoralized employees and other stakeholders and handling time pressures in order to make a quick, decisive impact. The leader requires authority, backed by political support, in order to make tough decisions such as painful cuts and difficult personnel choices. In this situation, everyone recognizes that change is necessary, but not what changes may be necessary. Affected constituencies may offer significant support and a little success goes a long way.
3) Realignment: This type of organization has significant strengths as well as serious constraints on what you can and cannot do. Typically, there is some time before making major calls. As a result, you can learn about the culture and politics. The intention is to revitalize a unit, product, or process that is drifting into trouble. The major issue here is that the organization is in denial. It is essential to understand what made the organization successful and why it drifted into trouble. To be successful, the leader must deal with deeply ingrained cultural norms that no longer contribute to high performance and convince employees that change is necessary. The successful leader must secure consistent public backing and support to confront the need for change. The leader must teach people about the problem
4) Sustaining success: The organization has significant strengths and serious constraints on what you can and cannot do. In this situation, the successful leader plays good defense by avoiding decisions that cause problems. He should develop the financial and technical resources to sustain the core business as well as exploit promising new opportunities. He should find ways to take the business to the next level. Typically, there is some time before making major calls. As a result, he can learn about the culture and politics and work to preserve the vitality of a successful organization and take it to the next level. S/he will need to invent the challenge and redirect resources.
It will be interesting to view the actions of President Obama in the context of these models.
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Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategic Plans, Strategy
Tags: Barack Obama, CEO, Hiring, Leadership, President Elect Obama, Strategy
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December 9, 2008
Let’s continue on our path to growing our leader. When our leader moves to this next level, he or she has become removed from communicating with the individual contributor.
| From Managing Others to Functional Manager |
| Skill Requirements |
- New communication skills must be developed to reach all levels.
- Understand and manage areas outside of one’s own work experiences.
- Illustrate the maturity to take other functional concerns into consideration.
- Become proficient at functional strategy and the ability to blend that strategy with the overall business strategy.
|
| Time Applications |
Participate in business team meetings and work with other functional managers. Team play with other functional managers and management of competing resources is vital. Limit the focus on functional matters. Delegate functional responsibilities to direct reports. |
| Work Values |
Shift here is from talking to listening to not only direct reports but customers, vendors and industry analysts so that more facts and perspectives may be gathered. Adopt a broad, long-term perspective (three years). Focus is on pushing the technical, professional and operational envelope, looking for sustainable competitive advantage rather than immediate but temporary edge. Understand the relationship between the function and other functions as well as the overall corporate strategy. Appreciate the work that is outside one’s own experiences. |
| Signs this Level Has Not Been Mastered |
- Favoring and concentrating on areas where the individual is most comfortable, thereby undervaluing the unknown.
- Failure to make the transition from an operational-project orientation to a strategic one (e.g. more focused on short term, demonstrates a poor sense of how the business operates.)
- Immaturity as a leader-manager (e.g. lack of a control or measurement system, need to control everything, doesn’t trust others especially subordinates in unfamiliar areas, isolates himself except for a few direct reports where he or she has relationships).
|
| Management’s Role in this Transition |
Place these managers on task forces, teams and committees of managers from different functions or with different backgrounds, skills and experiences. This will allow them to learn about new areas of work, develop new relationships with people who use different skills and methods.
Create meeting opportunities with other functional managers to discuss how they can work better together and what other opportunities exist for synergies.
Watch for development of and reinforce traits of maturity such as humility (aware that others may know more about something), delegation, communication and strong information flows within their organization. |
By now you have probably noted that the common theme is that the skills in each of these passages are not the ones that you will use to become effective at the next level.
Let’s see if this trend continues.
| From Functional Manager to Business Manager |
| Skill Requirements |
- Significant increase in autonomy, unfamiliarity and complexity at this level with a clear link between efforts and marketplace results.
- Where he or she had to understand different functions before, he or she must now rely and integrate the functions and their leadership.
- Balance future goals and present needs and make appropriate trade-offs.
- The issue is no longer can we do something technically but rather will we make any money at this and is this profitability sustainable.
- Become skilled at working with a wide variety of people and become sensitive to diverse functional issues.
|
| Time Applications |
Shift from doing time to thinking time. |
| Work Values |
Learn to trust, accept advice and receive feedback from all functional managers even though they may never have experienced these functions personally. |
| Signs this Level Has Not Been Mastered |
- Uninspired communications that doesn’t allow them to get their message across. This is because they are used to motivating a group of functional people who shared a particular “language” and now must address groups with different “languages”.
- Inability to assemble a strong team of direct reports
- Failure to grasp how the business can make money. This manifests itself in the failure to develop expense reduction or profit building programs. .
- Problems with time management particularly in working upward, with direct reports and customers.
- Neglecting the soft issues such as culture, feedback or organizational belief systems.
|
| Management’s Role in this Transition |
Help business managers to learn to value all functions and assemble and rely on a strong team of direct reports. Encourage the business manager to spend time with each of his functional mangers to learn. Have them set goals which can serve as early warning systems of problems. Suggest that the business manager take an appropriate functional manager on trips to become more attuned to the marketplace. |
Our next post will address two critical questions:
- Who is most responsible for the success of your leadership?
- What influences the likelihood that your people will execute successfully?
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Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategy
Tags: alignment triangle, business manager position, CEO, Charan, consumer bank, crossroads model, direct reports, enterprise leaders, full performer, functional leaders, functional managers, group executives, group functional manager, Hiring, James Noel, Leadership, leadership development system, leadership levels, leadership passage, leadership pipeline, leadership turn, managing managers, mastery potential, new business managers, next leadership level, pipeline model, pipeline problems, President Elect Obama, Ram Charan, role, skill requirements, Stephen Drotter, The Leadership Pipeline, time applications, Transition Team, work values
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December 4, 2008
The “Leadership Pipeline” model can be scaled for small and large companies and includes six major leadership passages. For example, in a small company of less than twenty people, the only real passage is a variation on the first one, Managing Self to Managing Others. The owner usually moves from individual contributor to managing others. It is only once you begin to hire others that these passages of leadership start to occur.
In the small business version of this model, the work within the group and enterprise levels is done by the Business Manager. The Functional Manager and Manager of Others levels are combined so there are really only four levels to address.
The small business model looks like this.
Level 1: Manage Self
Level 2: Manage Others
Level 3: Functional Manager
Level 4: Business Manager
Let’s take apart a couple of the levels and see how we can help our people become better leaders.
When one is effective at the “managing self” level, one’s skill requirements are primarily technical or professional. One contributes by doing the assigned work within given time frames and in ways that meet objectives. From a time application standpoint, the learning involves planning (so the work is completed on time), punctuality, content, quality, and reliability. The work values to be developed include acceptance of the company culture and adopting professional standards. When people demonstrate an ability to handle these responsibilities and adhere to the company’s values, they are often promoted to first-line manager.
| Managing Self |
| Skill Requirements |
Do the assigned work within given time frames and in ways that meet objectives |
| Time applications |
Plan so work is completed on time, be punctual, deliver quality content and be reliable |
| Work Values |
Accept the company’s culture and adopt professional standards |
This high performer is now ready for the first leadership stage. Let’s see what s/he needs to do to become effective in her/his new role.
| From Managing Self to Managing Others |
| Skill Requirements |
Plan work, fill jobs, assign work, motivate, coach and measure the work of others. There are some individual contributions to the work product. |
| Time Applications |
Reallocate time so that one’s own work is completed and help others perform effectively. Set priorities for unit and team. Stop putting out fires, seizing opportunities and handling tasks themselves. |
| Work Values |
Delegate and get results through others. Value managerial work (rather than tolerating it) and the success of others. The passage begins a shift toward a great emphasis on planning. |
| Signs this Level Has Not Been Mastered |
- Views questions from his or her people as interruptions
- Fixes their mistakes rather than teaching them to do the work properly
- Refuses to take ownership of the success of his or her people, distancing himself or herself from their problems and failures.
|
| Management’s Role in this Transition |
Create measures so that these performers make the transition effectively. Survey the direct reports to get feedback. Intervene and coach extensively when problems are observed. . Reinforce the need to shift beliefs and guide the leader in becoming effective using the new skills that are required. |
As you can see, to be successful at managing others, our manager will have to shift from many of the things that made him or her successful when he was accountable for only his work. There must be a shift from “doing work” to getting work done through others.
In our next post, we’ll look at the remaining levels of the small business model outlined in Ram Charan’s and Stephen Drotter’s book, The Leadership Pipeline.
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Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategy
Tags: alignment triangle, business manager position, CEO, Charan, consumer bank, crossroads model, direct reports, enterprise leaders, full performer, functional leaders, functional managers, group executives, group functional manager, Hiring, James Noel, Leadership, leadership development system, leadership levels, leadership passage, leadership pipeline, leadership turn, managing managers, mastery potential, new business managers, next leadership level, pipeline model, pipeline problems, President Elect Obama, Ram Charan, role, skill requirements, Stephen Drotter, The Leadership Pipeline, time applications, Transition Team, work values
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November 27, 2008
Without a doubt, the most important role of leadership is to develop the next generation of leaders. After all, hiring is really just a license to learn the job.
Without strong leadership throughout the company, growth will be restricted and limited. Improper decisions will be made or decisions will need to be centralized and funneled to a few leaders who will quickly become overwhelmed. Once overwhelmed, they too will make inappropriate decisions or they will delegate these decisions to those who lack the ability to make them effectively.
Most companies focus on personal traits and technical competence when making hiring decisions. The working assumption is that if a person performed well in one job, he or she will perform well in the next. This of course often proves not to be the case. And hiring gifted people from outside the company makes sense as a tactic but not as a strategy, because there is a scarcity of highly talented individuals. To address this challenge, CEOs need to look at this leadership development challenge as integral to an effective business strategy.
Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, and James Noel have articulated in their book, The Leadership Pipeline, a way to understand how individuals grow to become leaders and the steps that we can take to make this transition more effective.
There are three major benefits to adopting this pipeline model.
- Emotional stress for individual employees is reduced.
- Skipping passages becomes unlikely.
- The time to prepare someone for the top level is dramatically reduced because it becomes easier to recognize when an employee is ready to move to the next level.
The authors assert that there is a natural hierarchy of work. This hierarchy takes the form of six career passages or pipeline turns. This pipeline is not a cylinder but rather one that is bent in six places. At each change in organizational position, a significant turn has to be made. These turns involve a major change in three areas.
- Job requirements, demanding new skills
- The way they use their time, which we’ll call time applications, and
- Work values
Unfortunately, many managers often work at the wrong level. They’re clinging to values appropriate to earlier passages in which they managed others individually rather than managing other managers. Or, they haven’t acquired the skills or time applications appropriate to their current level. As a result they are less effective or ineffective leaders and the people they manage are negatively affected as well.
The challenge for organizations is to make sure that people in leadership positions are assigned to the level appropriate to their skills, time applications, and values. With an understanding of this model, bosses can become better coaches and more supportive as they recognize the issues with which new leaders are struggling. What prevents companies from growing is, more often than not, the failure of people to be willing to change their work habits, give up their hands-on involvement, or trust a new layer of management.
We’ll explore this concept and approach in the next post.
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Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategy
Tags: alignment triangle, business manager position, CEO, Charan, consumer bank, crossroads model, direct reports, enterprise leaders, full performer, functional leaders, functional managers, group executives, group functional manager, Hiring, James Noel, Leadership, leadership development system, leadership levels, leadership passage, leadership pipeline, leadership turn, managing managers, mastery potential, new business managers, next leadership level, pipeline model, pipeline problems, Ram Charan, role, Stephen Drotter, The Leadership Pipeline
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