Archives for June 2018

In 2005, long before Norway had begun to implement quotas for women in the boardroom, Elena Terol stepped out of a distinguished corporate career in talent acquisition to start her own executive search firm in Spain. She knew what she wanted.

Elena hired women partners for her company, ExcellentSearch, the Cornerstone member company in Madrid. The company grew; and so did the global discussion about the disturbing lack of women in senior executive roles and, more acutely, in the boardroom.

So in 2009, Elena and her team started, from scratch, a division dedicated to increasing female board members and executives in Spain. “We wanted women to be more visible.”

Elena’s team diligently built a database of over 300 talented women in all functions. When the new owner of the global telecommunications company Jazztel arrived in Spain, he asked Elena to present women-only candidates for an opening on the board. ExcellentSearch did not have to scramble.

Elena presented four female candidates for the position. The CEO was so impressed that he hired all four of them: one for the board position and the other three in tech, marketing, and human resources positions.

Jazztel later became a reference brand of Orange, a company where 8 of its 15 board members are women.

We presented four women for one position and he was so impressed with their talent he hired all four.”

Jazztel believed in women. But many other businesses fail to move beyond diversity speak and therefore continue to lag behind in hiring female executives — despite the claim that a more balanced leadership bench improves the bottom line.

In Room at the Top: Women Leaders and the Role of Executive Search, the London-based Recruitment & Employment Confederation blames the inaction on “ businesses not listening to advice from executive search firms to widen the talent pool and to question historical practices when it comes to senior appointments.”

A Larger Pool

Elena urges businesses to undertake a more rigorous search (“not just taking the recommendation of a friend”) or to hire a headhunter that can provide a larger, more objective pool. As with Jazztel, businesses are becoming increasingly explicit in asking search firms to provide a diverse set of candidates.

In Elena’s practice, her team typically talks with a sub-set of 10-15 candidates and in the end presents 3-5 to clients. She likes 2-3 of them to be women.

Changing the Climate

Voicing a commitment to hiring more women is inadequate. Spain, along with other countries, is hiring more women into senior roles but there is a long way to go. As for women on boards, the reviews on quotas are mixed.

While they’ve clearly increased the number of women on boards (Norway is slightly above its 40% mandate), quotas alone cannot tackle the underlying need for businesses to transform the organizational climate for women. Businesses must truly believe that women in leadership roles are major assets – and that means confronting the challenges of change.

The irony is that, in Elena’s view, women are more apt to challenge norms and raise the difficult questions in the boardroom. Sometimes it takes women to hire more women.

Making Women Visible

Women play a role in making themselves more visible, in part because they don’t always know how to sell themselves. They tend to be much less aggressive in their branding and fail to ask for what they want. In the inner circles of women mentoring one another, it’s called the “don’t ask, don’t get” phenomenon.

Elena’s advice? Don’t be afraid to ask for a specific position if you want it. And prepare for what it takes.

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For percentages of women on boards in your country between 2010-2016, see Female share of seats on boards of the largest publicly listed companies produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

There’s a catch when you hire a new leader.

If you spend $300,000 on an exceptional car you expect, and get, a very comprehensive warranty.

Invest that or more in a new CEO?  No warranty.  Just hope you made the right decision.

There may not be a absolute guarantee in recruiting top talent but there is a critical ancillary process that will hugely tilt the table in favor of a successful hire. It’s called Executive Integration Coaching.

Integration Coaching is not as well-known a term as onboarding and should not be confused with it. Onboarding has no acceptable definition other than a vague “getting an executive off to a fast start”. It has become commoditized and, in many instances, does not last longer than a few weeks and does not consist of much more than “the computer is here and the coffee maker down the hall.”

Onboarding is a short-term, agenda-driven orientation that tends to be a one-size-fits-all approach.

Executive Integration Coaching, on the other hand, views the transition as the second part of a comprehensive leadership succession which in many ways is more difficult than the recruitment and assessment stages.

The process is carefully designed, with a long-term view, to maximise the success of the new Executive. It involves emotions, beliefs, egos and understanding of what the organization is and should become, with a particular emphasis on company culture and political landscape.

Research indicates new leaders fail not because their operational abilities are inadequate but because they come in unprepared to lead in a new and different organizational culture. A recent survey reported 65% of respondents believed the failure of a new leader was due to poor culture fit.

It’s a two-edged sword. The organization may have felt they have the right person and moved on to other matters, assuming the new leader will “settle in” and figure things out on her own.  She, on the other hand, may not have sought the clarity needed to maneuver in a new environment at an accelerated pace and in a successful manner due to unspoken norms and expectations.

An Executive Integration Coach sees bigger issues

Companies increasingly are turning to Executive Integration Coaching for the solution. It’s a logical progression. The executive coach, most often an external partner, is experienced in a broad range of leadership attributes that extend beyond the parameters of the job.  The coach is looking to the bigger issues of how the leader’s experience and expectations align with his or her new environment.

At Cornerstone International Group, we are dedicating resources to focus specifically on Executive Integration Coaching as an essential component of the leadership integration process.

Our firm, The Human Capital Group, which is the Cornerstone Member in Nashville, Tenn., is leading this movement as an integrated talent solution provider. We believe that our clients want a focused partner that will provide solutions that are:

• Built around attracting, developing and retaining talent
• Tied to the organizational strategy and show an ROI
• Personalized and ongoing
• Addressing integration misalignment right away

The return on the Executive Integration Coaching process is both long as well as short term and provides a seamless transition that is beneficial to the organization as well as the new leader.  Executive Integration Coaching is based on the premise that learning and development are ongoing and that a learner mindset is critical during any time of transition.

So, the next time you plonk down Ferrari money to attract a new Executive, look into the extended warranty. It’s called Executive Integration Coaching.

Leave me a comment or feel free to contact me at ginger-duncan@cornerstone-group.com.

Some company recruiters may not know what a short list is.  Those who do, recognise it as a critical step in identifying the best candidate for a senior position in their organization.

The Short List only comes up in Retained Executive Search. The methodology in Retained is to scour the market for not only the best qualified but the best fit with the client company. (

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The result of this rigorous discovery and scrutiny – across town or across the globe — is the Short List.  There may have been a Long List earlier, but the Short List is the critical moment.

This is the List that contains the names of the people that an experienced and professional agency consider the best qualified for a specific challenge and who are worthy of your review.

And why is this the key – the critical moment – in your bid to secure absolutely the best talent?

Because if that person is not on the Short List at this point, you are going to fall short of your goal.  You are overwhelmingly likely to select a finalist from this list.  It is very unlikely that you are going to restart the basic search because you are relying on the firm you retained to have covered ALL the bases, not just the easy ones.

Let’s look at this another way. You could do your own research. But at your paygrade you should not be looking under rocks. Or you could go the contingency search route and evaluate a flood of “available” supported by minimum documentation and reasoning.

In either case, you will be drawing up your own list of finalists, your Short List, based on less than optimum input.  Compare that with how we would do it at Cornerstone International Group.

With over 250 experienced executive search consultants in 56 offices and 34 countries around the world, we have a pretty good idea where the best people are.  Once we thoroughly understand your organization, your immediate needs and where you want to get to, we will also have a pretty good idea of who will be the best people to deliver your goals.

They may not be available. But we also know which of them might be interested in what you do, who you are, and what you are offering – interested enough to move.

They will be on our Short List to you – a list of maybe half a dozen exceptional achievers, women and men, tightly aligned to your briefing and goals, assessed and pre-screened.

We bring this list to you. We go over each candidate in detail. We bring in who you want to see. We make recommendations.

But this is your show. We just got you to the championship round.