Hiring senior employees is a minefield.
It blows up in your face far too often
Disastrous if you’re planning your exit
.
I was having lunch with the Chairman of a mid-sized pharma business and we got onto a topic I was struggling with, namely the contribution of senior members of the team.
He told me how, frustrated with the overall performance and attitude of the Board he’d taken over three years earlier, he called in a ‘radical’ Dutch psychologist he’d met by chance.
Together they planned a four day session. A chance to get away and to break down the issues holding the team back. The task was then to rebuild the team to perform beyond the simple sum of its parts. It was an eye-opener for my friend. He said the first two days were frightening as the psychologist stripped back layer after layer as he tried to understand their personal drivers and how they helped or hindered the team dynamic. Lots of emotions and lots of tears.
Suffice to say the process was transformative. Of the eight Directors who started the process, two were let go. They simply didn’t fit.
They were more than capable of performing the technical duties of their roles. The problem was deeper, associated with their behaviours and attitudes.
My colleague said that the process taught him one of the most important aspects of building high performance teams. He said that most business recruitment processes, even at high level, tend to recruit on competences; what you can do. It is only later when we see people failing to deliver and commit at the very highest level does the flip side come into play as we then let these expensive people go. Hired for ‘what they can do’, fired as a result of ‘who they are’.
Of course there are a number of tools that profess to help the recruiter get under the skin of candidates. My colleague was serially unimpressed.
Basking in the glow of a highly performing Board he gave me some insight into how the process had changed his approach to senior recruitment.
First he didn‘t see anybody until they were down to a shortlist. His assumption was that the process to date had detected the outstanding technical skills commensurate with the position that made the candidate a contender. My friend saw his role as selecting the candidate whose personality, behaviors and attitudes would complement the team. The team he was responsible for. The team that led the business.
So no cv. No ‘where do you want to be in three years’ or any other of the ridiculous questions that get asked all too often to pad out an interview. His approach, from the outset, was to dig deep into the psyche of the person in front of him. Into childhood experiences. In particular he set out to explore the candidate’s relationship with his or her mother. And he would go deeper after the responses like a dog with a bone. It was his task to find the skeletons in the cupboard. Often buried deep.
He told me that some found the experience too uncomfortable. They expected to be quizzed on their technical know-how and experience. Instead many of their base motivations were laid bare. They weren’t right.
It worked. Over time his Board team drove the company to new heights. The teamwork and inter-personal relationships up and down the company were at the core of the growth.
Hired for what you can do, fired for who you are became a feature of the past.
Maybe it’s time for a different approach? Director level recruitment is a very expensive thing to get wrong.
Adrian Collins
Exit Planner, NED, Mentor and Business Advisor
Adrian runs his own Exit Advisory consultancy.
AdrianCollins.co.uk
“..I have been in business for 40 years. I successfully grew a 6 man 2nd tier UK business into an international leader employing 49 people servicing some of the world’s biggest consumer brands. I’ve worked with people in the biggest corporations down to the smallest entrepreneurs. The common factor was that they came to me seeking success. Success for their brand, their company, for themselves. For over 25 years I was a multi award-winning talent shop for gifted creatives, strategists, project managers and production specialists. Now I’m working with CEOs of SMEs as a mentor, NED and advisor, leveraging 40 years experience. In the end, it’s all about people. Getting out from the Covid mess presents us a challenge. Smart, driven people will be required. If I can impart any of my experience to help what will be the biggest challenge of a lifetime, please let me know.. ..check out my Linkedin profile….give me a call…”
