DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION?

If you would like to pose a question about any phase of the executive transition process, please do. I will respond and others can comment as well.

TROUBLE IN THE SEARCH PROCESS

Many individuals on search/transition committees feel an affinity for a particular candidate in the application review stage – often based on what they have in common – whether it is hometown or the same college or rooting for the same sports team. Having a diverse search committee can balance that tendency.
Another time that an individual search committee member, or the whole committee, can “fall in love” is during and after an interview. I have seen committees want to stop interviewing after they meet someone they believe is perfect.
One time sticks out in my mind. The search was for the Dean of an Ivy League College; the candidate came from another Ivy League College so, there was the feeling of having much in common. The committee was also attracted to the candidate’s responses to questions.
I urged the committee to continue the process and began conducting telephone references. The first name on the candidate’s list was a well-known public figure who served on the Board of the candidate’s college. I had barely introduced myself when the reference said “I owe an allegiance to our field (higher education).” He began telling me all the reasons why this person was not a good candidate for any college or university. To be fair I called other references and while the response was not as strong, it confirmed everything the first reference had said. The committee was relieved that it had not made a hasty decision.

FALLING IN LOVE TOO SOON

Each of us knows what falling in love feels like – that time when we believe that the object of our affection is perfect. There is no listening to someone else’s opinion – it’s love at first sight! As individuals, we fall in love totally, often many times. Falling in love as search committee members is even more risky.
Over time, an individual in love learns about imperfections – small ones and sometimes-BIG ones. For a lover that journey of discovery is a very personal one but for a search committee that journey of discovery needs to be shared and the committee does not have the luxury of a long time for gradual exploration. Making the wrong decision has serious consequences for an entire organization.
Love at first sight, early in the process, limits one’s ability to think rationally, hear others and put the organization’s needs first. Falling in love with a particular candidate becomes an individual response when it should be a committee’s rational journey.

IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL BOARD MEMBERS/VOLUNTEERS

Many people are wary of volunteering, worried about another time commitment that gets out of hand. Organizations who need volunteers have to make any “job” that needs filling one that has a discrete start and finish. This fits people’s desire to help – with boundaries.
Another way to encourage volunteerism is to publicly thank people who have helped in different ways – large and small. Hopefully this illustrates the many volunteers the organization has and emphasizes that it is an organization where the work is accomplished by volunteers.
When your nonprofit is identifying future board members, someone or several people have to get to know current and new members to know what their talents are. This could be done through social times, new member orientation or a survey of the resources a member could share with others.
Do you have other suggestions?

Re-Recruiting as a leadership tool

In the July 4th New York Times, Adam Bryant has an interview with Linda Heasley, CEO of The Limited. It is at the bottom of the middle column: “Re-Recruit Your Team Every Day”.
What struck me about Linda’s philosophy was that she assumes that her associates have many choices about where to work and therefore she has the mindset of “re-recruiting” every day, convincing them “that this is the best opportunity for them”. There are obvious parallels for a nonprofit at the executive director’s level, for senior management and staff.
How would a board function differently if it was re-recruiting its executive director every day? Would it be more board support or appreciation expressed more often or assuring that their leader has opportunities to grow? Other options?
For the senior management team, would the executive director’s efforts be the same? Different?
And how would senior managers assure that he or she is re-recruiting daily?

Identifying potential leaders

When you have an organization that has no paid staff but is lead by volunteers, how do you identify leaders who can find the time or commit the time to “staffing the organization”? What are some of the best ways to get to know your membership? When is the right time to approach him or her?

If you are asking someone to chair a committee, how do you describe a job that is doable in terms of the person’s time and abilities? How do you support someone if he or she does not have experience chairing a committee? What if the person accepts and is a disaster in the role? How do you extricate the organization gracefully?

My turn to ask the questions. Any suggestions? I’ll do more on the issues in another blog.

References – off the list

Candidates will provide you with a list of references and they are useful as a starting point to learn about the organization where the candidate works and the challenges they faced.

Those references are a good starting point but I would always ask a finalist, a candidate the search committee or board is serious about, for permission to speak with anyone who knows his or her professional work.

As a safeguard I also send the candidate a letter to sign stating that he or she gave permission to do these additional references.

One good way to figure out who to call is simply to check the website for the organization and find additional people to call.

Another good way is to visualize the organizational chart and call to ask to speak to the Board Chair or the Executive Director or the Program Director or Business Manager or Development Director.

Before making these calls, the candidate would have agreed that he or she is sufficiently interested in the job and a serious contender so that it is permissible to call people at his or her current workplace.

A search committee or board would not be doing due diligence to skip calling people at the current job or to skip calling people not on the candidate’s original list.

If you are interested in more about references, here are two other blogs on the subject:

http://theartofhiringleaders.wordpress.com/2009/12/

http://theartofhiringleaders.wordpress.com/2009/10/

References help the board support the executive director

For the candidate the board hires, the knowledge gained from references are key pieces of information for the board.

References may help the board prepare for a new executive director’s tendency to work too hard, to take on too much, to forget to take time off. Everyone benefits from time to refresh.

References may help a board better understand the new leader’s strengths and where the new leader needs support or professional development.

Can you share examples of how understanding a candidate better through references resulted in a smoother transition?

References, references, references

Recently I read a book on executive transitions and I did not see much information on references, so one could assume that references were not all that important.

The phases of an executive transition are all important, each one strengthens the chances of success. References are one of those important phases.

I consider references an “insurance policy”, without them I am likely to lose something.

That something is a lot of information the board and I should have to be totally informed about candidates’ work experience, style, accomplishments and problems.

In some cases, what the board learns may disqualify a candidate. In others references may heighten interest in a particular candidate.

An executive transition is a learning process and references are another piece of your learning.

Executive search/transition – free downloads

Have you noticed that there are free downloads from The Art of Hiring Leaders: A Guide for Nonprofit Organizations?

You will find an overview of the executive transition/executive search process:www.theartofhiringleaders.net/introduction.htm

On the left are other pieces you can download:excerpts from Chapter 1 and an article on the Executive Transition Opportunity. That plus the checklist below will give you a good sense of what the book offers.

A short version of the check list provides an overview of the process as well as a way to remember all the parts and pieces:www.theartofhiringleaders.net/checklist-search-process.htm