by LouAdlerArticles | Mar 7, 2016 | Current Articles
Over the past months I've written a number of posts suggesting that assessing leadership and potential needs to be part of every interview for every job.
The techniques described have been successfully used to help a not-for-profit hire a hundred camp counselors one summer, a quick-service restaurant hire thousands of high school grads to rapidly expand its chain on the West Coast, and hundreds of large and small companies hire thousands of engineers, accountants, account executives, call center reps, managers, and executives regardless of industry.
In his new book, The End of Average, Harvard professor Todd Rose even suggested that the performance-based hiring process underlying this approach was the ideal means to break free from outdated thinking about skills and experience by emphasizing individual performance and potential.
Despite the effectiveness of the performance-based interview, I think it's not sufficient since it, like all interviews, emphasizes the quality of spontaneous answers rather than the insight of well-reasoned responses. That's why I suggested addingPowerPoint-like controlled interviews, more open-ended discussions, the use of well-organized panel interviews and take-home problem-solving questions into the process. (Click here for more on these topics.)
The take-home case study incorporates all of these concepts. The idea is to give the final candidates a realistic job-related problem to evaluate as part of the final interviewing round. The candidate's approach to the solution is then presented to the core hiring team as part of a give-and-give discussion.
Let me use a real example to describe the process. As part of a search for a VP of marketing position for a midsize manufacturing company, there was concern the candidate did not have enough detailed product background. To address the issue I suggested the finalist describe how he would lead the effort to put together a three-year product road map and present his approach at a group meeting. I was there with the CEO, VP of engineering, VP of sales, two board members, and the CFO.
The candidate was told he should prepare a 15-20 minute overview of his approach covering some basic industry trends and describe how he would get the information needed to put the product road map together. The candidate had been told that during this presentation he would be fielding questions from the executive team on the assumptions he used and his overall planning and approach. It took about an hour to complete this part of the case study. While the candidate didn't have all of the answers, his approach to getting the information and knowing what he didn't know was insightful. Just as important was how the candidate interfaced with the team, asked clarifying questions, and presented complex information.
However, this was only the first half of the evaluation. The candidate had been told ahead of time that he would be asked to describe a prior accomplishment that had prepared him for the work required of this position. This is the "anchor" in theanchor and visualize leadership assessment questioning pattern. He used a few PowerPoint slides to describe another product road map effort he had led when he was a product manager for a bigger company. The subsequent fact-finding questions revealed his ability to understand tough technical issues and convince engineers to modify their approach in the face of challenging marketing conditions while addressing some overriding financial constraints of the organization.
The candidate was hired and was successful until the CEO decided he personally wanted to create the product road map rather than raise the capital needed to grow the company. Regardless, the anchor and visualizing questioning pattern is a great way to assess leadership. The ability to solve a problem and put together a comprehensive plan of action is a critical first step. If you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there, but delivering the solution is just as important.
What I've discovered is that there are plenty of people who can successfully handle the anchor and visualize questioning approach who never get the chance. The problem: In an interview they're judged on how quickly they respond, not how thoughtful their responses are. That's why the take-home case study provides a better means to assess competency and fit. It gives the person time to consider a problem, present his/her findings, and interact with the team. By anchoring the visualization question you also have confidence the person can deliver on the plan. While it takes time and organization to implement the process, it takes more time to correct a hiring mistake.
by LouAdlerArticles | Feb 9, 2016 | Current Articles
Over the past few weeks I’ve written a number of posts suggesting that assessing leadership and potential needs to be part of every interview for every job.
The techniques described have been successfully used to help a not-for-profit hire 100 thousand camp counselors one summer, a quick service restaurant hire thousands of high school grads to rapidly expand its chain on the west coast, and hundreds of large and small companies hire thousands of engineers, accountants, account executives, call center reps, managers and executives regardless of industry.
In his new book, The End of Average, Harvard professor Todd Rose even suggested that the Performance-based Hiring process underlying this approach was the ideal means to break free from outdated thinking about skills and experience by emphasizing individual performance and potential.
Despite the effectiveness of the Performance-based Interview I think it’s not sufficient since it, like all interviews, emphasizes the quality of spontaneous answers rather than the quality of well-reasoned answers. That’s why I suggested adding PowerPoint-like controlled interviews, more open-ended discussions, the use of well-organized panel interviews and take-home problem-solving questions into the process. (Click here for more on these topics.)
The take-home case study incorporates all of these concepts. The idea is to give the final candidates a realistic job-related problem to evaluate as part of the final interviewing round. The candidate’s approach to the solution is then presented to the core hiring team as part of a give-and-give discussion.
Let me use a real example to describe the process. As part of a search for a VP Marketing position for a mid-size manufacturing company, there was concern the candidate did not have enough detailed product experience. To address the issue I suggested the finalist describe how he would lead the effort to put together a three-year product roadmap and present his approach at a group meeting. I was there with the CEO, VP Engineering, VP Sales, two board members and the CFO.
The candidate was told he should prepare a 15-20 minute overview of his approach covering some basic industry trends and describe how he would get the information needed to put the product roadmap together. During this presentation, the candidate was told he would be fielding questions from the interviewing team on the assumptions he used and anything regarding his overall planning and the approach taken. It took about an hour to complete this part of the case study. While the candidate didn’t have all of the answers, his approach to getting the information and knowing what he didn’t know was insightful. As important was how the candidate interfaced with the team, asked clarifying questions and presented complex information.
However, this was only the first half of the evaluation. The candidate was told ahead of time he would also be asked to describe something he accomplished that was most comparable to preparing the work that was required. This is the Anchor in the Anchor and Visualize leadership assessment questioning pattern. He used a few PowerPoint slides to describe another product roadmap effort he led when he was a product manager for a bigger company. The subsequent fact-finding questions revealed his ability to understand tough technical issues, and convince engineers to modify their approach in the face of challenging marketing conditions while addressing some overriding financial constraints of the organization.
The candidate was hired and was successful until the CEO decided he was more concerned with the product roadmap and less concerned with raising the capital needed to grow the company. Regardless, the Anchor and Visualizing questioning pattern is a great way to assess leadership. The ability to figure out a solution to a problem and put together a comprehensive plan of action is a critical first step. If you don’t know where you’re going you’ll never get there, but delivering the solution is just as important.
What I’ve discovered is that there are plenty of people who can successfully handle the Anchor and Visualize questioning approach who never get the chance. The problem: In the interview they’re judged on how quickly they respond to interviewing questions, not how thoughtful their responses are. That’s why the take-home case study provides a better means to assess competency and fit. It gives the person time to consider a problem, present his/her findings and interact with the team. By anchoring the visualization question you also have confidence the person can deliver on the plan. While it takes time and organization to implement the process, it takes more time to correct a hiring mistake.
by LouAdlerArticles | Feb 2, 2016 | Current Articles
A few weeks ago I wrote a post defining leadership as the ability to both determine the best solution to a problem and then successfully implementing it. These are two totally separate abilities. One without the other is half a leader. One half is someone who talks a good game but doesn’t deliver the results. The other half is someone who is too structured to deliver anything other than what’s already been delivered. In the post I described the Anchor and Visualize questioning pattern as a means to assess leadership for any type of job.
Assessing potential to deliver bigger and better solutions is a little more complex but it can be done by using the same two questions with a bit of a twist. Here’s how:
- Determine the depth and breadth of the candidate’s thinking process by making the problems more complex. The idea is to determine the point when the person’s thinking skills go from specific to general.
- Evaluate the complexity of the person’s past achievements and decision-making process. If the bigger role is comparable on these factors, it’s likely the person will be successful as long as his or her organizational and project management skills are strong.
- Determine the rate of growth of the person’s past accomplishments. If the person’s track record shows increasing scope, scale and impact it’s likely the person will remain on the same trend line.
- Separate the person’s true confidence in handling bigger challenges from false bravado. People who have successfully handled stretch roles and have been tested under fire typically can handle similar stretch roles.
(As a side note, you might want to try out the same approach for POTUS contenders.)
I’ve been successfully using this concept to assess job candidates for the past 25 years as a means to predict their performance in new roles, many of them bigger, and all of them different. The process starts by getting the hiring manager to define the work that needs to be done as a series of performance objectives rather than skills and experiences. During the interview I describe the tasks that need to be done and then have the candidates describe a comparable accomplishment for each one. With all of the fact-finding involved, it usually takes 15-20 minutes to fully understand and compare the accomplishments.
I then ask how the person would address a job-related problem and get into a back-and-forth discussion. The purpose of this approach is to understand the person’s approach to figuring out a solution, not the answer itself. To assess the thinking component of potential I make the problem a little more complex watching for the point when the candidate’s thinking goes from specific to general.
For example, for a manufacturing engineer I asked a candidate to describe what he would need to do to automate a complete line even though the open spot was just to add robotics to individual work centers. The candidate clearly understood the implication of tying all of the processes together and the technical challenges involved even though he had never done anything like this before. I then asked how he’d tie in the material flow into the process in order to optimize overall plant performance. This is where he started to ramble. Based on this, I concluded he had some immediate upside but was not quite ready to handle functions outside of his current expertise.
Over the years I’ve discovered that predicted success increases when the person has both the ability to visualize a problem and has executed something comparable in terms of scope, scale and complexity. For entry-level positions a series of smaller accomplishments is a good substitute.
To predict potential I add the person’s rate of progression and flexibility into the equation. If the scope, scale, span of control and impact of the accomplishments are increasing over time it’s likely they’ll continue to increase at a similar rate. Flexibility can be assessed by determining if these accomplishments were on different projects, with different people, using different technologies, at different companies and in different industries. The broader these are the better.
The anchor and visualizing questioning pattern is a great means for assessing leadership for any job. By making the problems more complex and examining the rate of change of the person’s accomplishments you’ll be able to accurately assess potential. Of course, when you find someone who’s both a strong leader and has the potential to grow, hire the person. That's how you build great teams and great companies. That's what leaders do.
by LouAdlerArticles | Jan 19, 2016 | Current Articles
Half a leader isn’t good enough.
Last week I visited the Boys & Girls of Santa Ana (CA) and was blown away. CEORobert Santana is changing the lives of inner city kids and teenagers. In a community with a high school graduation rate of about 50%, Robert’s kids graduate at a rate of more than 90% and he gets just about all of them into college despite their financial challenges. After 15 minutes with Robert you know he has the core traits of all great leaders – the ability to visualize a goal and the determination to get it done.
I got a sense of this definition for leadership around 1990. A woman, at the time a senior manager with one of the major CPA firms, called me telling me she wouldn’t take a director of accounting job at a major entertainment company in Los Angeles. She said the job was poorly defined and poorly staffed and the direction they were going in from a systems and reporting standpoint would be a failure. She then told me she’d only take the job if they would agree to finance and support her plan. She got the job and achieved exactly what she said she would do. That’s what leaders do – they tell you what they’re going to do and then they do it.
A few years later I was interviewing a candidate for a VP Manufacturing job who described how he successfully planned and implemented a three-year project to build a multi-plant manufacturing and distribution company throughout Southeast Asia. I then asked him how he would integrate this type of capability within the company’s existing operations in Mexico and the U.S. He then spent 30 minutes describing what needed to be considered. My client company reluctantly hired him, concerned his industry background and manufacturing processes weren’t a perfect job fit. This didn’t matter. Leadership did. He accomplished what he said was required and went on to become the CEO of the parent company within three years.
At about the same time, a CEO whom I met through Vistage (an organization of CEOs) called and asked me what two questions he was supposed to ask all candidates. The open job was for a VP Operations and the candidate turned out to be waiting in his office to be interviewed. I suggested he take a tour of the plant and stop at every area where there was a big problem. After describing the problem ask the candidate how he’d go about fixing it. Then ask the person what he’s already accomplished that’s most comparable. The CEO called me a few hours later saying the candidate did a good job of problem-solving and planning but hadn’t accomplished anything comparable. That was the right decision. Half a leader isn’t good enough.
More recently I received an email from Sydney Finkelstein, a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He asked me to check out his new book,Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, especially the chapter on how superbosses hire people. The examples cited seem to map closely to the visualization and execution pattern all leaders seem to possess.
Simply put, leadership is the ability to figure out a problem, plan a solution and then implement it. Here’s how this concept has been operationalized in thePerformance-based Hiring process we’ve been helping companies implement for the past 25 years.
- First, define the real job. Instead of focusing on skills and experiences, first define the work that needs to be done as a series of 5-6 performance objectives. Each objective needs to clearly describe the task, include some measure of success and explain any unusual restraints or resource limitations.
- Ask the problem-solving or “Visualization” question for the most important challenges. Ask candidates how they would determine the cause of the issue and what would be needed to plan out a solution. Spend 15-20 minutes in a back-and-forth discussion focusing on the thinking processthe person uses for problem solving and planning.
- “Anchor” each objective using the Most Significant Accomplishment question. For each objective ask the candidate to describe an actual accomplishment that’s most comparable to what’s required. Spend 15-20 minutes peeling the onion to fully understand the process the person used to accomplish the task.
I refer to this as the Anchor and Visualize questioning pattern, aka: The 2-Question Leadership Test. As long as you define the work that needs to be done ahead of time, it’s uncanny how well the process predicts on-the-job success. In my mind, hiring a person who can tell you how to do something but has never done anything similar, is too much talk and not enough action. However, it’s a bigger risk hiring someone who has done something similar but can’t think any bigger or any differently. These people are just too structured. You’ll be hiring a lot of “super people” if you insist on hiring those who can problem-solve, plan and successfully execute. While this might not make you a superboss, it will certainly make you a super manager.
by LouAdlerArticles | Aug 19, 2015 | Current Articles
I lost a friend the other day when I described one of his favorite candidates for POTUS as incompetent.
I lose a lot of friends this way.
Sometimes you have to be honest.
He argued that his favorite had a wonderful vision of the future. I suggested leadership is more than a vision. He wasn't paying attention.
He argued that his favorite could bring people together. I suggested leadership is more than bringing people of the same party together. He wasn't paying attention.
He argued that his favorite was a wonderful speaker. I suggested leadership is more than being a wonderful speaker. He then asked, "How do you define leadership?"
Asking questions is an important first step in understanding someone else's point of view. I didn't say this, but that's what I was thinking.
I was looking for a napkin and pen to write something memorable like, "Leadership = Vision plus Execution," but I couldn't find a pen, so I tapped it out on my iPhone. I then said that a great vision without a track record of execution is just hope. That's why I don't like rookies in any job. Having the right vision is immaterial if you can't deliver the results. I then went on to say that execution is the hard part.
When I interview candidates for any type of job I first ask the hiring manager what problems need to be solved and what changes need to be made. I then ask candidates to describe things they've accomplished of comparable scope and complexity.
My former friend then said that on this basis, no one is really qualified to be POTUS since no one has ever handled that big of a job. That's why I said again that I don't like rookies, no matter the vision. But I followed this up by saying the long definition of execution can minimize the risk of hiring the wrong person. By this time our bill had arrived, along with a pen, I wrote this on the back of the receipt:
Successful Execution = correctly figuring out the problem to be solved, getting agreement on a solution, preparing a detailed plan, organizing all of the resources and people needed to implement the plan/solution, inspiring the people involved, and delivering the results as promised.
All of these steps are necessary to deliver on the vision promise.
I suggested this same formula could be used to assess candidates for any job, from camp counselor to POTUS. For each of the components in the execution formula, just ask people to describe a major accomplishment that best demonstrates the person's depth of expertise in that area. Then, dig deep and find out the circumstances involved, the role the person actually played, the people on the team and how they were chosen, the challenges faced, the planning and management process used, if the person was successful or not, the biggest and hardest decisions made, and the process the person used to solve the biggest problems.
If you do this for all of the components of successful execution, you'll know if the person should be seriously considered for the position, POTUS or otherwise.
For the POTUS position, it seems that history shows that governors and generals have been the most successful, since they've had to deal with issues of similar scope, impact, and complexity. Since rookies have no comparable history, there's a huge risk they'll be unsuccessful. However, a key part of the solution is the demonstrated ability to create bipartisan consensus. To me, this is a deal breaker.
My former friend was starting to reconsider his favorite candidate but asked about people who have been senators and/or have led major companies or major government organizations. I responded by saying the experience alone was not enough. They still had to be successful in whatever role they held.
We ended the evening by agreeing that his favorite candidate was unqualified for the role of POTUS but not necessarily incompetent. We didn't agree on who was most competent, though. However, I suggested if all candidates were put through a similar "vision plus execution" leadership assessment, the best would stand out. I then repeated what my first mentor told me:
Vision without successful execution is just a bunch of empty promises.
Execution without a future vision is just more of the same.
Leadership = Vision plus Execution.
You need both to be successful.
