What comprises best
hires in Leadership positions? When do things go wrong? Can there be a
permanent assurance for the best/most effective kind of Senior leadership
hiring?
Times of India published an article this weekend that caught my eye, my two cents on the same.
In my years of hiring for Senior Level Leadership positions,
there have been times I have wondered how that particular hire’s first
day..rather first week might have been. I have a habit of getting so deeply
entrenched in the hiring process, right from the time the mandate (hiring
request) is sent to me by the client till my selected candidate joins the
company, I find it hard to disconnect even a little after the individual has
joined the client’s teams! :)
So in effect I always wonder/imagine how this employee’s first few days/weeks/months really are.
So in effect I always wonder/imagine how this employee’s first few days/weeks/months really are.
Anyway. The first week (leave alone the first month), for a
Senior Level Hire is never the famous or infamous ‘Honeymoon period’ as
corporate cats like to call it. As you go higher, the time in which a Senior
Leadership Executive is supposed to Hit the ground running gets lesser &
lesser, as the organizational ecosystem
is heavily, heavily dependent on its top line. And this pyramid cannot function
without its tippy top.
Imagine, with this short a gestation period, an even more
impatient bottom-line, time running out even before the incumbent has joined
the company, what is he/she happens to be a wrong hire from the start? The
image of an organizational equivalent of a Hiroshima/Nagasaki blaze in my mind,
as I imagine the chaos.
Ofcourse I have seen & heard of far more realistic
versions of this chaos in the industry in the last decade, from clients, HR
Reps, CEOs/COOs lamenting on how a wrong hire can range from being mildly
annoying (in very strong, top heavy setups where someone is always there to
take over & do damage control) to being a disastrous domino effect where an
entire line of top performers quit owing to a wrong, wrong, wrong Senior
Leadership hire.
So, what goes wrong? I hear a million voices answer that
question echoing from the hallowed wood paneled cabins of those company
stakeholders/owners/promoters to the cubicles of Human Resources/Operations
teams who report into these mishires (like misfire? :) heh). Ok that’s not a word,
but you know what I mean.
From force-feeding management styles from their previous workplaces,
down everyone’s throats at the new company, to over or under estimating how
much trouble the current situation at the new company is in, not taking enough
help/assistance to over relying on immediate reportees to not understanding
policies & procedures or whatever, & about a zillion more things.
Now, while this all
could be true AFTER joining, what are some fatal hiring flaws made WHILE hiring
or BEFORE the person in question joins in?
2> The
Halo Effect/Biased Hiring: Many a times, top management in companies,
based on succession hiring, select their own protégés or someone from outside
the company but from inside the industry, who they deem to be great fits, which
has generally been touted as a great & reliable practice, but in essence,
any kind of hiring that involves a bias, or a halo effect as recruiters call
it, has the potential to backfire. I never sit for an interview thinking this
candidate I’m interviewing is a definite select or even think that somewhere
midway in the interview. I keep both options open, so my biases don’t get the
better of me, & I make a hiring decision after the candidate has left my
office, not before. It helps in this scenario to atleast have a 2 people
interviewing panel if not 3 or more, so alternate impressions can be sought to
arrive at a much more wholesome median which reflects a better hiring decision.
3> Wrong
shoe, wrong foot:
There are times, especially recent times,
where I’ve witnessed cross functional
hiring happening, where incumbents from a different background are chosen for
jobs of a different background. For eg. Marketing savants are hired for
Operations jobs, Operations guys are chosen for HR, HR Generalists are chosen
for out & out Training openings, etc etc. Although if a person displays the
inclination & technical aptitude for a line of work that isn’t his/her own,
there are chances that they may excel..maybe? But I woudn’t necessarily make it
a thumb rule. Far from it. So if you’re feeling adventurous,
dabble in stocks
or go sky diving, but try not to bring a newbie to handle large
responsibilities
of a totally or even slightly new area for them in your company. There's
good reason why tried & tested hold true at critical times,
especially.
4> Compensation
Conundrums & Job Roles – Expectation v/s Reality :
Many a senior level professionals have
called me within a month of joining a new dig, looking to quit because of
compensation related problems or complaining that the job role offered isn’t
even half of what was promised/expected of them. So what goes wrong here? HR
has been held in contempt for centuries [I’m sure Caesar’s HR Manager was hated
by the entire Roman army, & don’t even get me started on Cave man HR
politics] for fudging/obscuring/not giving enough clarity on salary break ups
to under pressure candidates on the threshold of joining a new company &
wanting clarity on their offer letters. This is mostly where salary related
issues come to the forefront, or possibly another factor is an alternate
employer throwing more money at the same candidate who joined for much less at
the previous company, & now wish to jump off a bridge. Salary expectations
aside, surprisingly more than even money, senior level professionals look to
quit jobs based on roles they have a problem with! I recently spoke to a senior
level professional who after working for almost a decade at one of India’s
biggest MNC’s joined a new company, where the job role was not even 10% of what
he was doing at his previous employer’s company. Obviously, stability doesn’t
matter to him at the moment, & he’s all for quitting this role for a much
meatier role (money is not an issue he said), but role is very important. There
you go. So ensure monetary mayhem is transformed to Sentient
Salaries & Job descriptions are neither inflated nor underplayed.
Transparency is your friend.
So, while CXO Inc India battles with a horde
of problems everyday, never has the need for a perfect hire been more important
in decades, that it is now. Can’t ride into battle with a Vice President who’s
from a Toy Factory, now, can you? :)
With Best Hiring Regards,
Neha Asthana
CEO
HR Interface Corporate Services
Mumbai | India
