Lou
Adler
CEO,
best-selling author, created Performance-based Hiring. Recent book: The
Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired
Finding
leaders starts by listening
If
I had a bigger napkin I would have written this:
The
Less Simple Formula for Assessing Leadership = Identify the
Problem, Find
a Solution, Develop
a Workable Plan, Inspire
Others, Deliver
the Results
The
story started many years ago, but was retold last week while having breakfast
with a former client. The napkin was handy. When a client, he was the CEO of a
mid-sized company, and my search firm had placed most of his senior management
team. Now he’s on the board of a dozen or so different charitable organizations,
university groups, and privately held companies. In his new role he’s still
confronting the same hiring challenges as before: finding enough leaders. My
company today is no longer a search firm. We now help companies set up programs
to find and hire leaders of all types. Sometimes these leaders are engineers,
accountants or sales reps. Sometimes they’re business executives or someone
working on the shop floor. Regardless of the role, it’s not hard to identify
leaders when you know what you’re looking for. This is where napkins come in
handy, at least as a starting point.
Before
I started working with this CEO, I had an assignment with a major LA-based
entertainment company looking for a corporate director of accounting. The ideal
candidate needed a CPA from a top accounting firm, and at least 5-10 additional
years of experience working at the corporate office of a publicly-traded
company. One of my candidates for the role was a young woman who was a senior
manager with one of the major accounting firms. While her clients were
publicly-traded companies, she didn’t have any hands-on industry experience.
More challenging, she only had seven years of total experience, not the 10-15
listed on the job description. There was no question she was an exceptional
person, and the VP Controller was more than willing to meet her. After the
interview we both agreed she was a very strong person, but too light for the
position. She never got this message.
Before
I could break the bad news she wasn’t going to be considered for the job, she
said something like, “I don’t want this job the way it’s currently structured.
There is no way anyone could accomplish the overhaul of the department as
defined given the resources and time frame currently specified. If you want me
to consider this job there are five things that must happen.” She then spent
another 10 minutes describing what she needed in terms of resources, staff and
system support including a rough time-phased implementation plan. It was a
remarkable plan. So remarkable, I never had a chance to tell her she was not
getting the job. Instead, I called the VP Controller, and told him he had to
hear directly what this woman proposed, even if he didn’t hire her. He
enthusiastically invited her back and with a few other directors in the room
asked her to describe her plan for rebuilding the accounting department. After
about three hours he made her the offer. She accepted. Eighteen months later she
was promoted into a bigger job after successfully completing the initial
project.
What
this woman did was simply amazing. As a result, I started rethinking how the
best people I had placed up to that point answered questions. There was an
obvious common thread. The best engineers could always visualize the technical
problem, figure out a way to solve it and put a plan together. One plant manager
candidate put a plan together on a flip chart on how to set up a global
manufacturing and distribution center. The best sales reps could develop
approaches to handle the most difficult clients. YMCA camp counselors could
develop daily activities to ensure even their quietest kids would have a great
experience every day. And it goes on and on. The best people in any job,
regardless of their age or level, can visualize the problem they’re facing and
figure out a way to solve it.
But
this is just the first step in leadership ....
But
this is just the first step in leadership – having a vision and being able to
articulate it. It’s not enough, though. Not only do you need a detailed plan
once the problem is solved, but you also must implement the solution
successfully. This requires obtaining the resources, developing and motivating
the team, and committing to achieving the objective despite the numerous
challenges and obstacles that will always crop up.
The
ability to articulate a vision combined with a track record of achieving
comparable results was how the two-question Performance-based Interview
described in The Essential Guide
for Hiring & Getting Hired was
developed. One question involves asking candidates to describe how they’d go
about figuring out how to accomplish a major objective or realistic job-related
problem. The other question asks them to describe something they’ve done that’s
most comparable. (Here’s
a link to a summary of the Anchor and Visualize two-question
process.) After asking these two questions a few times for your
biggest job-related challenges, you can be confident about hiring someone who
has the ability to both visualize a solution when combined with a track record
of having accomplished something comparable. One without the other will be a
problem.
Be
careful. Too often we’re seduced by just the vision and the lofty ideas. Others
become overly focused on technical brilliance, or a track record of years of
experience. None of this is good enough. Competency without results is just
mediocrity. Results without vision is just more of the same. Vision without the
ability to deliver results is just a bunch of empty promises. With leadership,
everything changes. It starts by listening.
___________________________________________
Lou
Adler (@LouA) is the CEO of The
Adler Group, a full-service talent acquisition consulting firm. He’s
the creator of Performance-based Hiring and the author of the Amazon Top 10
business best-seller, Hire
With Your Head (Wiley,
2007). His new book, The
Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired, (Workbench, 2013) has
recently been published. For more tips joinLou's
LinkedIn group and
follow his Wisdom
About Work series
on Facebook.
