Every company does it. An executive departs, there doesn’t appear to be a ready back-up on the bench, so they immediately turn to the “free agent” market. Unlike in sports, however, your competition’s roster isn’t published each day in the morning paper. It isn’t that easy to know what you need to go get, and who is available.
So how do you know who is out there, and how do you determine exactly what you are looking for? More importantly, how do you know when you find it?
Smart Business spoke with Brian Trueblood, vice president of TNS Partners Inc., for insight about how the more enlightened companies replace key executives.
Once a company realizes it has a need, how should it define that need, in order to have the best chance of success?
The best companies seize this opportunity to be introspective. They analyze the key business drivers the role will impact and how this executive will need to affect them. Do the key interactors dictate a certain skill set, style or ability? Often, companies are simply too focused on what the outgoing leader was doing to fully appreciate what the next leader needs to be. The breadth of experience and the outside perspective of an executive search consultant is a tremendous asset in this process.
But if a company has a specific need, why does broad experience help define it?
Because, by being too narrow, you risk overlooking a talented executive who might be the best candidate. When defining the need, many skills will be desirable. A seasoned executive search consultant simply has a larger and broader population base from which to assess an individual. Many of the skill sets companies are seeking today are transferable from one industry to another or at least from one industry segment to another. Broadly experienced consultants are more in tune with those skills.
Can you give me an example of how skills can be transferable across industries?
The easiest one is leadership. If you have led large, complex teams; put in place processes to manage them; developed techniques to measure success; and been responsible for the financials, resource allocation, customers and markets, does it really matter if the actual product was the same?
Beyond leadership, other people skills, technical competencies, measurement disciplines, organizational abilities, financial acuity and communications capabilities are all clearly transferable across industry and functional boundaries. The real question is whether the person will translate his or her successes in other organizations with the differing infrastructure and environment of the new company.
How is the specification able to define the culture and internal dynamics of the company?
The executive search firm must have a proven process that includes becoming intimately familiar with the internal workings of the company. By meeting with the entire management team, touring applicable facilities, interviewing internal candidates, team members, vendors and customers, the executive search firm can gain a true appreciation for the culture, working environment and personality of the organization. This knowledge is reflected in the position specification within the company description, the definition of the opportunity as well as the desired competencies, experiences and attributes.
During the interview process, how are executives evaluated to determine which are potential candidates?
The search specification is the gauge. This is why the ‘spec’ is so critical to the process. Search firms work hard to develop these documents, but expect the client to work just as hard and invest in them just as much. The specification development must be a back and forth process. If the first draft is approved outright and the search firm hasn’t done significant work with the company before, it’s likely that the specification is off target or too vague. There must be insight, discussion, refinement and adjustment before agreement. Only then can the specification be the appropriate tool throughout the process.
So once you have identified your candidates, what is the next step?
Continue to validate your belief that they ‘fit the spec’ using external sources such as background verification and reference checks, while the internal leadership team delivers on their commitments in the specification. Remember, the spec goes far beyond skills and also encompasses a description of the company, the culture and the opportunity. The company must use the interview process to provide a window for the candidate into the organization and it must be congruent with the specification. If the specification is properly developed and then diligently utilized throughout the search process, the likelihood of success is dramatically increased.
BRIAN TRUEBLOOD is vice president of TNS Partners Inc. Reach him at (214) 369-3565, ext. 114, or [email protected].