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Archives for August 2021

The Changing Face of Executive Search

August 23, 2021 by Cornerstone International Group Leave a Comment

There was a time when you could sum up the recruiting business by saying “search firms are for clients, job boards are for candidates.”.   Covid put paid to that.

Executive recruiting today has become more homogenous.  It always was a comprehensive package with two essential components – matching and meeting the specific needs of both the company and the candidate – but the talent turbulence is subtly playing with priorities.

Take the client.

Two years ago, an executive recruiting firm would most likely be responding to the initiative of a client who knows – or believes he knows – what he wants and who also knows that when recruiting for a C-suite position, the best-fit candidates are not usually found on the job market.

The critical value-add sought from the search firm is a “partnership” leading to confirmation of the precise need and then finding the best talent for both the job and the employer culture. Post-Covid, we can expect a rebalancing of that partnership from being reactive to moving closer to the origination of the process. 

The vast majority of businesses are undergoing significant change in their workforce composition.  Top talent is going to review life choices leading to departure or perhaps to more self-satisfying conditions such as remote work which may not be acceptable to the company.

Companies likely have lost a lot of people already and this will pre-occupy the talent department but the good managers will also be looking out further — at a less cluttered view of their total human resources, evaluating what is now there and being creative about what is not there.  After all, if your home is wrecked by a tornado, you do not necessarily rebuild it exactly as it was.

This greenfield approach to talent is something that enterprising search firms should seize on.  Retained executive search has always been a management consulting process but now needs to become even more entrenched.  The recruiter can pro-actively become a part of the resource planning and identification process whether or not a specific search mandate is on the table.

I would imagine that smart businesses (if they have not done this already), will turn away from competitive tenders for every hire, settle on the search firm they most trust, and put the firm’s best professional on a standing corporate talent management committee.  I ran a service company back in the day with a client that supportive of my goals that I would walk on broken glass for them.

In the meantime, has life changed for the candidate?  Of course.

We’ve been in this chaos long enough for motivated top performers to be re-assessing their future.  That review will be based in their own, likely revised, work-life expectations.  They will also be influenced greatly by how their employer reacts to this new situation.  Most companies make loud proclamations of how they value their people and how their most important assets are those who go home at night.

Those assets may already have made a decision to look elsewhere. They are more likely to still be pulling down a paycheque but with less enthusiasm. And push has come to shove.

Is the talk getting walked?  Is there genuine interest and concern for the uncertainties facing staff ?  As time goes on and the pressure on the bottom line remains, employees are sensitive to how they are treated –- as precious cargo, or flung overboard to lighten ship? 

An interview in HuntScanlon Media summarized employee attitudes this way:

“People generally prefer to work for a company that is genuine and sincere, with a real sense of purpose. Employees will be thankful for sacrifices made on their behalf to help sustain the business beyond the Covid recession. 

On the other hand, candidates might be more open to move if they see that their employer doesn’t value them quite as much as they had thought.”

This in turn creates opportunity for a progressive search firm.

If indeed the best-fit business has become strategically better balanced between searcher and searched (see opening paragraph above) then one of the key improvements will be longer-term nurturing of talent-in-waiting. 

Search professionals are inundated with candidate CVs of varying value.  Hardly, if ever, does an unsolicited CV meet an open need. The pros, however, deal with everyone courteously and helpfully when they can, anxious to create a good memory of the experience for the applicant who may end up in a hiring position somewhere. 

Post Covid, many firms are extending that brief relationship with a future candidate. Here at Cornerstone International Group, we offer ongoing contact for relevant news and refer people to reputable executive job directories such as the AESC’s Blue Steps. Some of our colleagues offer accelerated coaching programs to refine the job seeking process.

In the meantime, consultants pay closer attention than ever to their key client companies, sensing who might be restless and keeping running, personal SWOT assessments.

It’s not new, and it’s not rocket science.  But it is gradually changing the face of the talent market.

Filed Under: Cornerstone Blog

Why You Get the Engagement You Deserve

August 10, 2021 by Cornerstone International Group Leave a Comment

Employee engagement will play an essential role in the challenge of restructuring the workforce after COVID.  What leaders must realize is that organizations get the employee engagement they deserve because they prompt it.

They do so in one of four ways.

Purpose-driven organizations that let employees co-create the path forward get employees committed to the cause. Those that invite their employees to contribute are more likely to get those contributions. Organizations with a command and control way of operating get mostly compliant employees. And organizations that continually re-organize and do not give their employees clear direction should not be surprised if their disengagement scores are way high.

1. Prompting Disengagement

Every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet new situations by reorganizing…and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.”

 – Petronius Arbiter, d. A.D. 65 – Roman governor and advisor (arbiter) to Nero

What’s most terrifying about this quote is that this is not a new problem. We’ve all seen leaders rip the heart out of organizations, close stores, eliminate projects, lay off people, put dramatically more pressure on the survivors. They change their messages continually, sometimes looking like the strategy of the month club. Then they are amazed when those left standing start disengaging.

2. Prompting Compliance

Sometimes compliance is what you need.

U.S. Army colonel Randy Chase visited the store on a navy ship at sea to buy a tube of toothpaste. He went to the end of the queue of people waiting to get into the store and said “good morning” to the man in front of him who took one look at him and ran away.

Colonel Chase had done two things wrong. (1) At that time, officers didn’t talk to enlisted men on ships except to convey orders and (2) officers didn’t wait in lines.

Where the army pushes decisions down and out in line with commander’s intent so people can react to changing situations in ground warfare, the navy has a strong culture of command and control to minimize the chances of devastating onboard mistakes. The army wants contribution. The navy needs compliance and has built a culture to get it.

3. Prompting Contribution

The army promotes a culture that prompts contributions. Communication is a critical part of this. Bryan Smith laid out five methods of persuasion in The Fifth Discipline Field book:

Tell – Sell – Test – Consult – Co-create

If you tell someone to do something, the best you can hope for is compliance. The good news is that all you will need is indirect communication to make them aware – things like emails or corporate announcements. Just keep your message clear and consistent.

Prompting contributions requires selling, testing or consulting to help people understand what is needed. This requires direct communication so people can ask questions along the way to get at why you want something done.

4. Prompting Commitment

While you probably can force compliance over the short term and certainly can encourage contribution, prompting commitment is inevitably an exercise in unlocking a passion that’s already there.

As Jim Whitehurst learned in his own onboarding as CEO of Red Hat, in an organization with high levels of employee engagement it’s more about sparking conversations and getting out of the way.

Hyper-committed people aren’t going to follow your direction. They’re going to do whatever it takes to drive the organization’s purpose.

Doing good for me and doing things I’m good at matters to everyone to some degree. On top of that, hyper-committed people care a lot about the doing good for others as part of their purpose. They have to believe in the cause. That’s why your communication with them has to connect with them at an emotional level to change feelings.

It’s why live performances have so much more impact than any note or video ever can. Magic happens when both communicating parties connect. Just as audiences get the performance they deserve, organizations get the employee engagement they deserve.

If you want magic, deserve it.

Filed Under: Cornerstone Blog

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