Lean Connections

Treat the executive you’re recruiting as well or better than you would your best customer…

The recruiting process to identify your company’s new CFO has been thorough and professionally executed. Your search committee, your retained search firm, and all key stakeholders were fully engaged from the start. It went smoothly, quickly, and in fact, better than you expected, given these turbulent economic times. You vetted the top players in your industry, and a few outsiders who contributed some creative insights and energy into your deliberations.   And now you’ve narrowed your choices down to three, but one is clearly a standout.

It’s time for crafting and extending the offer.  And, as SVP Human Resources, it’s your job to figure out “now that we’ve given the nod to Samantha Pink – by all measures our best candidate – how are we going to convince her to move for this job?”

Oops. Too late. Anything you do at this point to “convince” Samantha will rarely amount to more than just rolling the dice. The “convincing” process should have begun the day she came onto your radar screen as a potential candidate.  Paving the way to structure an offer which your selected candidate will eagerly accept must begin long before you’ve arrived at this moment. And I would argue that it is one of the most critical components of the executive search process.

The simple truth is that candidates today, particularly at the Vice President level and above, are becoming extremely selective in terms of the companies and positions they’ll consider for career opportunities. So many variables now enter into the career-move equation that it’s easy for a prospective employer to get blindsided at almost any turn.  Consider such factors as corporate financial uncertainties, executive personal, family and financial concerns, and dramatic real estate market upheavals across the country, and it becomes even more important that you do a lot of things right along the road to attracting the best new leaders to your organization. Too many mistakes on your part and you’re sunk; it’s not easy to recover with an offer of a big title or promotion, or even a major bump in compensation.

So instead, as my colleague Stephen Covey wisely preaches, “Begin with the end in mind.” Here are some strategic ideas you may want to consider:

1. Clearly define exactly what it is that makes you the employer of choice in your market space.

It’s a major hook for top candidates, and you’ll need this ammunition during your courtship process, and again at offer stage. Identify the factors which the executives and associates who work for you find so attractive that they simply wouldn’t consider going anywhere else.  Share and relate in your candidate discussions.

Also, realistically understand and prepare to address any concerns or perceptions, valid or maybe even not so valid, regarding your weaknesses (financial, legal, market, product, etc.). Johnson & Johnson, for instance, has a factory out there that just isn’t making the grade right now. It’s creating massive recalls of children’s medication and a PR disaster. J&J needs to be openly discussing this problem with anyone they’re recruiting, right from the very start – and describing how they’re fixing the current situation and preventing recurrences.

Above all else, prepare yourself with extensive market intelligence to answer, over and over, the ultimate (and sometimes never directly asked, but always there) candidate question: “I’m happy and well-paid where I am. Why should I leave and make the move to your company?”  Hint: your corporate culture, also mentioned by Groysberg (below) could have a lot to do with it.

2. Don’t write a job description; create a “career opportunity blueprint” which communicates how and why the candidate can, will want to, and will, do great things working in your business.

About 50% of today’s corporate job descriptions are meaningless. For the most part, these comprise laundry lists which somebody long ago downloaded from the Net and keeps on inserting into what should be meaningful strategic tools for business planning and growth.  And the other half, well…  

According to Harvard University’s Boris Groysberg, one of the top three mistakes executives make when changing jobs is believing this stuff. Well, actually he writes: “assuming that the given job title and description accurately reflect the position.” Is it possible that the employer creating such a document is at least partially at fault for this misunderstanding?

All too often, job descriptions share a common problem: They lack strategic focus. They concentrate on the tasks the manager is expected to perform and the activities he or she must engage in. There are lists of specific duties, responsibilities, personal characteristics and so on. But these descriptions are severely lacking in the most critical element of all: the performance objective.

To attract dynamic, performance-driven executives to your organization, position blueprints must focus on desired outcomes for your company, not on the tasks required to get there. Each position must be defined in terms of how it contributes to your company’s success. This is what allows the executive to understand how he or she contributes to the business unit. It strengthens the commitment between the executive and the company, empowers better decision making, and aligns the executive as a true stakeholder in desired outcomes.

And it communicates how and why the candidate will be able to do great things by working with you in your business. Could be the tie-breaker that lets you win over your next “A player.”

3. Treat each candidate as you would your best customer, and serve her well.

How much do you think Zappos.com knows about each customer?  About their best customers?  I’d bet it’s a lot more than name, address and shoe size.  And how does Tony Hsieh utilize that information to make each customer’s experience more personal, more memorable and more valuable?

Strive to make each candidate’s experience personal, memorable and valuable as well, at each step of his or her interaction with you. Well before that offer stage, you need to understand the individual’s decision factors which will play into offer acceptance, and reduce the possibilities of turn-down. The professional and personal factors, the intellectual and emotional ones, those which are clearly communicated and obvious factors,  and also those so deeply hidden they  rarely surface out into the open. But they’re all there, and they’re all very real to each and every candidate. Make them real for your recruiting team as well.

So how many school-aged children do Samantha Pink and her spouse need to worry about in case of a relocation? What’s his career like and how do his plans fit in with the couple’s long-term personal and financial goals? How will they manage his career transition?  Of course they own a home, and most likely in a top neighborhood where other C-level executives choose to reside.

Have you already begun to do some advance networking with your C-level contacts and your local HR colleagues in anticipation of confidentially introducing Johnny Pink around before he begins his own job search?  Have you had someone on your team dig into the details of how difficult it will be for them to sell their home, and determine what neighborhoods near your corporate HQ would provide a similar lifestyle experience  (including schools) for their family?  Or, have you explored potential temporary residence options in Samantha and Johnny’s home town, as well as in yours?  Have your prepared to discuss executive commuting options for one or the other, or even both, as an alternative to full immediate relocation for the family.  And how about yet other alternatives in the event their high school basketball star adamantly resists relocation before finishing out his senior year?

It’s never going to be possible to anticipate every scenario which could potentially block your number one candidate from accepting even the best and greatest compensation and lifestyle package you can put together.  But the degree to which you’ve effectively listened and understood, researched and prepared, from those first moments of your executive candidate interactions, you’ll be way ahead of the game.

Finally, to actually address my colleague’s question which prompted this mini-essay: No is the answer.  There is no magic. We’re all Muggles here. If your top candidate needs to sell her home and will not take a loss on the sale, which therefore requires you to subsidize the cash deficit with a sign-on bonus or stock options or restricted stock, then that’s what you’ll have to do.  Trust me: she will walk away from your “the best we can do” compromise offer. Move onto candidate number two.

And that’s the way I see it.

In his role as CEO of Adam Zak Executive Search, Adam Zak recruits “A” players.  Then, in their new executive roles, these talented individuals go on to make their new companies simply excellent. Adam has been using his uncommon expertise to help clients improve their businesses operationally and financially for almost 20 years. Find him at http://Twitter.com/LeanThinker.

Adam’s new book, Simple Excellence: Organizing and Aligning the Management Team in a Lean Transformation, will be available in November, 2010, from Taylor & Francis/Productivity Press, publisher.

Did things get a little tight for you as well?

Is it official?  Is the “Great Recession” over? Should we be launching new executive leadership hiring initiatives now? Are we sure? When will we be sure?  

1. Turn your competitors’ mistakes to your advantage. There indeed are exceptions to every rule and there’s always an exception for why someone might be an executive “in transition” (see above). Voluntary departures, particularly from your competitor companies, may have the potential to become attractive executive hires for you. Put together an intelligence network and do some sleuthing. Figure out why they left, turn it around, and make it a selling point when you go after these individuals.  A common concern I’m hearing is that many companies simply did not communicate effectively about belt-tightening measures. This had the effect of blindsiding mid-level leaders to the point where they unintentionally misinformed and misled their rank-and-file, and lost “face” and trust with these team members. Demonstrate how this will never happen as long as you’re in charge and you’ll win their commitment.
2. Do even more to become the employment brand of choice. Start thinking about your prospective executive candidates as you would of potential customers for your products and services.  Customers have unique feelings and attitudes about what they buy from whom. Chances are very strong you spend tremendous marketing resources figuring this out. Do the same kind of analysis for the executives you want to hire. Explore why they choose to work where they currently do.  Assess and define what they would find in your organization that would make you a potentially attractive company to work for – for them. Translate this information into a message that is in turn appealing and unique to each individual you want to recruit (no batch mass-marketing here; this is tailored one-piece, just-in-time communication flow).  Hint: strong leadership is something which most executives and line workers absolutely crave. Find a way to communicate that this is part of the foundation which underlies your corporate culture. You’ll attract the world-class winners you seek.
3. Plan for the Expected. Visualize for the Unanticipated. It’s hard to maneuver a decelerating aircraft carrier even if you prepare to dock well in advance. But just think how incredibly demanding it must be to turn one around on a dime.  Similarly, preparing an executive recruiting and succession plan is difficult enough in a stable and orderly business environment. Now imagine reacting to an out-of-the blue marketing threat from a major competitor, or responding to a newly discovered technological innovation, or perhaps a particularly attractive acquisition opportunity.  It’s only with deeply concentrated forethought and almost prescient insight that any organization could possibly hope to be thoroughly prepared for such scenarios on a moment’s notice.  And there are very few SWOT oracles around anymore these days.

But visualizing such unanticipated events, and building “executive talent supply chains” or pipelines around them, is a strategic investment which makes a lot of sense for the market leaders of tomorrow. Become just such a strategic talent thinker. Create virtual “Dream Teams” for existing and anticipated leadership roles within all of today’s major revenue-generating business units, as well as those with the potential to eventually supersede them. Fill the pipeline with names and dossiers of “A-players” who will be eager to take your phone call on the day your CEO comes to you and says:  “I want you to ramp up a critical recruiting effort for this deeply hush-hush business venture I’ve been covertly negotiating for months. Let’s get started now!”