Lean Connections

Yes, the rumor is true, and you can consider this your official confirmation. 

The War for Talent is about to come roaring back any time now.  And the C-suite team will tune in to its effects more rapidly and deeply than before, but this time unsure of any reasonable end in sight. So, HR leaders at all levels who’ve been advocating for their own “seat at the table” are about to get lots of opportunities to demonstrate their strategic thinking skills and their ability to deliver bottom-line business impact. 

I suggest this first quarter of the new decade as an opportune time to rethink and clarify the nature of HR’s outside executive recruiting partnerships.  In what ways are we receiving value from these relationships? How much net value, compared to our investment, are we getting? Are there ways in which we might improve upon both the nature and quality of that return?  Are we asking ourselves: What, really, are our expectations from those upon whom we rely to identify and procure new generations of talent for our organizations?

The word “relationship” itself is fraught with peril (see Dr. Phil, Elizabeth Gilbert), but in limiting ourselves to the context of executive search only, we should be able to steer clear of at least the big rocks in the river.  Or maybe  - in light of massively shifting global business and economic cycles; relentless demand for continuous performance improvement; constantly increasing pressure for innovation in products and services; accelerating obsolescence of managerial talent, and more  -  there is indeed one big rock we can’t ignore: Is our current executive search model broken (doesn’t work all that well) and unsustainable (can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing if we demand different results)?

Are we shopping for candidates by roaming the aisles at Macy’s, or do we focus on finding that unique and special gem at Harry Winston’s? Do we choose firms who can simply deliver a candidate as the need arises, or do we prefer working someone with whom we can share our long-term growth strategies? Someone who might then more prospectively cultivate the kind of talent we’ll want to entice with our value proposition a year or two down the road? Are we looking at our recruiters through the lens of purchasing or procurement, as just another one of the vendors in the supply chain? Or do we seek out dedicated professional relationships with specialists who invest their time and themselves in understanding our business and our issues?  And, despite my obvious personal bias, who is to say which of the choices we make about these relationships are the most appropriate for your organization, at your current point in your corporate life-cycle, and within the context of your industry and competitive situation?  More soon.

Tune in for part two of this post –  Recalibrate Your Executive Search Expectations

And that’s the way I see it.  Adam Zak

(Author note: this blog post was originally published this morning on the new Human Capital Institute’s (HCI) Talent Acquisition Community blog.  I’ve been invited to write a guest posting which will appear on the HCI site every couple of weeks or so.  Please be sure to visit the HCI Web site for lots of other great articles related to talent acquisition and many other topics on the cutting-edge of HR thought leadership).

Jim Womack’s newsletter this month, posted here, very clearly explores one of the underlying reasons that Lean or Operational Excellence initiatives are often difficult to sustain (and sometimes even get off the ground).  Every affected stakeholder -whether the executive leadership team recognize it or not – looks carefully at that proposed improvement effort and asks “what’s in it for me?” and “what happens to me if this moves forward?”  So I ask, what does that individual do if he or she is getting an answer with which they’re not entirely happy?

In his article Jim refers to Pareto’s (Mr. 80/20 rule) second concept of economic optimality, and immediatly reminds me of this phrase in the Hippocratic Corpus: “first do no harm.” Some lean practitioners attempting to drive change unfortunately ignore this admonition at their own peril.

If, in our zeal to improve something, we cannot envision how our ideal future state may negatively impact another part of the organization’s currently “adequate” state, then we are indeed not optimizing the whole. Rather, we fall back on the silo-thinking which created the need for making changes/improvements in the first place.  And that’s where true “Lean Leadership” in the executive ranks shows what it’s made of.  Go forth, ye, and make sustainable Lean happen! 

And that’s the way I see it.  Adam Zak

Will you select the right one?

In every conversation with senior leadership I’ve had during the past two weeks this one truth stands out loud and clear:  Acquiring, orienting and deploying the right new talent is an expensive business to get right, and even more expensive to get wrong.  Just think of all that muda!