Measuring Talent - Sifting through the "Dead Wood"

Your new executive is on board; the internal memos are distributed and the press release hits the trade publications: They all sound so familiar...something like this: "Our search for a new leader to return our company to sustained success has been focused and thorough," said X. "A screening team of board members, consisting of myself, Y and Z, established a broad field of candidates and interviewed many individuals. We then recommended the strongest contenders to the board as finalists. Each was interviewed by the entire board, and Mr.Perfect was our top choice.

"Mr. Perfect came to our attention because of his/her strong execution skills, his/her proven ability to lead top performing teams and his/her track record in driving shareholder value. He/she demonstrated these skills by turning around A, which, while smaller than our company, is a complex organization with multiple business segments. As we got to know Mr. Perfect, we were impressed by his emphasis on developing internal talent while reaching outside for new skills, his understanding of the role of culture in a company's success and his personal integrity. Additionally, his/her straightforward style has won the respect of employees, customers and investors," Blah...Blah...Blah...

Impressive! What's more impressive is that Mr. Perfect recently resigned unexpectedly do to a compromising integrity issue, leaving the stock price depressed and employee moral in disarray. Oh and by the way, the company paid him $20,000,000+ to go away. So much for how impressed the hiring committee was with his "Personal Integrity". Oooops...that's gotta hurt!

Now...Lets get to work...

Hiring today...relies on networking, personal contacts, trade associations, job boards (best place to find your next "average" executive) and search firms. Candidates are identified based on their background and experience, interviewed by a search or executive committee, sent out to the "shrink" for the "five factor analysis" evaluation, references are checked and he/she is brought on to lead the company or discipline they represent.

The most progressive companies now recognize this as an ineffective hiring strategy and are now moving toward a more measurable approach.

This approach identifies:

- The strategies and objectives of the organization.

- Measures the existing internal talent against these strategies
utilizing multi dimensional assessment methods.

- Determines where the voids occur in achieving the objectives.

- Conducts a through internal and external candidate search.

- Matches the candidate's skills, behaviors, interests and
organizational competencies against the strategies,
objectives, skills, behaviors, interests and organizational
competencies of the candidates to select the individual who
can perform at the expected level.

- Utilizes proven on-boarding methods to acclimate the new
executive to the team and the team to the new executive.

- Uses the assessment data collected on an ongoing basis to
coach, develop, maximize team performance, and develop
long-term succession plans.

By using these multi dimensional assessment methods boards and executive teams are able to eliminate most if not all of the subjectivity in the interview process and successfully set the individual and company up for success.

For more information on significantly improving your executive hiring and selection process contact Peter Capodice at peter@capodice.com or 941-906-1990