Overview

Hiring the right people into the right jobs is one of the most important strategic challenges facing organizations, and yet too often is approached as a piecemeal task.  The impact of a failed or sub-optimal hire on productivity is enormous, both in cost and morale.  Of the 3 criteria for hiring—IQ, Relevant Experience and Emotional Intelligence, senior level candidates who are strongest in IQ and Relevant Experience are more likely to fail than any of the other combinations, and those are the two criteria that are often considered the most important.  The most likely to succeed are those whose strongest traits combine EI and Relevant Experience^*. 

Too little thought is generally given to ensuring that candidates excel in the behaviors needed to achieve the desired cultural balance.  There is a common, innate preference to hire those who will execute rather than innovators who will take risks or push back.  As a result, what we frequently get are smart, good soldiers, or smart commanding executors who focus on end results at the expense of the people needed for success. 

It is no surprise then that on-boarding is often referred to as “assimilation,” where the candidate is expected to adapt to, rather than help change or shape, the culture.  Consulting and search firms too often collude with the status quo—in attempting to meet the client’s needs we too often do the reverse.  

The purpose of on-boarding is to optimize the leader’s impact on the organization in the shortest possible timeframe.  Our “Excelerator” program better ensures that the return on investment in senior leaders is higher than what would normally be expected, or that an inappropriate hire becomes more quickly apparent.

* “The Challenge of Hiring Senior Executives,” Claudio Fernandez-Araoz, The Emotional Intelligent Workplace, Cherniss and Goleman, Jossey-Bass, 2001