How to do a good job in the selection and assessment of external executives

Executives are always the company's most valuable assets. However, except for a few enterprises that have done well in leadership development and successor training, most enterprises will encounter the problem of insufficient leaders in the process of development and transformation. A well-known headhunting company once found that about 77% of enterprises admit that it is difficult for them to provide a sufficient number of capable people through internal training at the level of senior managers. Therefore, it is an inevitable choice for these enterprises to make up for the lack of leadership and management ability by hiring executives from outside. Correct evaluation is the first step for a company to obtain excellent executives. In order to improve the success rate of selecting and evaluating external executives, enterprises need to seriously consider and deal with the following basic issues. First, fully understand the core characteristics and particularity of executive selection. Like all other levels of human resource selection and evaluation, the ultimate goal of executive selection is to achieve "matching between people and posts". However, the post particularity of senior executives determines that the "person-post matching" required by them is different from the "person-post matching" in the recruitment of ordinary level personnel. Its special features are: 1, and its function performance is related to the overall situation and long-term of the enterprise; 2. Its functional performance can only be effectively realized through good teamwork; 3. For those who hold senior management positions, what is behind the visible knowledge, skills and experience is the more important decisive factor for their career success; It is precisely because of these particularities that we must consider the following three aspects of "matching" when selecting and evaluating external executives, which actually determines the evaluation factors and evaluation criteria for selecting external executives. On the first level, the requirements of job matching are the same as those of general recruitment. That is, determine the necessary qualification requirements (KSAO) of the incumbent in combination with job responsibilities. Among them, K (knowledge) is the specific information, professional knowledge and post knowledge needed to perform a certain task; S (skill) refers to the proficiency in using a certain tool or method to complete a task at work, including practical work skills and experience; A (ability) is the ability of the incumbent, such as logical thinking ability, learning ability, observation ability, problem solving ability, expression and persuasion ability. O (others) is other personality traits needed to effectively complete a job, such as work attitude, career development orientation, personality and so on. These qualifications can generally be obtained through education, training or work practice. On the second level, as an enterprise executive, the matching of people and teams will inevitably involve other functions and departments, and it needs the cooperation and support of other senior management team leaders. And many times, he must also participate in the collective decision-making of the company as a member of the senior management team. The overall performance effect of the top management team is the core component of each top management performance. Therefore, "what kind of people should be allowed to join the team", "what kind of personality characteristics should the top leaders and team members in charge of various fields have" and so on have become issues that must be considered clearly. Only in this way can we really mobilize the enthusiasm of each team member and improve the team effectiveness of the entire senior management team; Only in this way can we improve the overall execution of enterprises, promote mutual coordination, support and cooperation, and shape and enhance the prestige of management. For the CEO and senior management members who may enter the board of directors, in addition to the management team, they should also think about the above issues repeatedly at the level of another team he wants to join-the board team. The third level is the matching between people and enterprises. External executives play their talents and make contributions in the environment and platform provided by enterprises. Whether he can integrate, adapt and even promote the changes in the environment, and whether the company's platform can adapt to the play of its specialties directly determines whether the purpose of introducing external executives can be achieved. In the matching between man and environment, the most difficult thing to change is culture, ideas and values. Therefore, enterprises must clearly and objectively analyze and understand their own cultural environment, and carefully evaluate the matching degree of candidates in culture, ideas and values with the company's overall environment. If it can't be a perfect match, at least it should be adaptive. In the matching of people and platforms, the most important thing is to evaluate whether the development strategy and direction of the enterprise are consistent with the career demands of the candidates, whether the management system, management system and management mechanism of the enterprise can support the development of the candidates' abilities and specialties, the characteristics of the current development stage of the enterprise, and whether the internal and external challenges faced by the enterprise match the candidates' core qualities and specialties. Second, the core difficulty of executive evaluation The particularity of executive positions and responsibilities determines the core characteristics and assessment points of executive selection. The ability and quality characteristics of executives themselves determine the unique difficulties of executive evaluation. The core difficulty is mainly manifested in three aspects: 1, and the core competence that determines the executive competence is usually hidden. It is difficult to effectively detect and evaluate these capabilities. It is precisely because of the difficulty of knowing people. Su Dongpo, a great writer, will sigh: people are hard to know, rivers and seas are hard to describe; The valley is difficult to match its risks; The cloud is hard to change. With the increasing complexity of the whole economic activities and the rapid changes in the internal and external environment, the success of executives is increasingly dependent on intangible abilities that cannot be found in resumes, such as personality, flexibility, cultural adaptability, learning ability and so on. Because of this, Jack, known as the world's first CEO. Welch will admit in his memoir that "choosing CEO for General Electric was the hardest business decision of my life". He didn't even say it was the hardest. And the three candidates he wants to evaluate have worked with them for more than fifteen years. Therefore, one of the biggest challenges of executive evaluation is how to discover things that are invisible but crucial to the success or failure of an enterprise. 2. Uncertainty For the quality of executives (especially those qualities that play a decisive role and are hidden under the iceberg), the industry has also developed many special testing methods and tools. Such as evaluation center, personality test and so on. However, due to the limitations of these tools and methods, the phenomenon of "inaccurate measurement" is widespread. For example, as far as the evaluation center is concerned, George Thornton III pointed out in the book "The Application of Evaluation Center in Human Resource Management" that its effectiveness usually fluctuates around 0.37, with a large fluctuation range, as low as 0. 15 and as high as 0.65. This may be related to the effect of this method, which is highly dependent on the quality of appraisers. In addition, the evaluation center is often accompanied by some other defects. For example, because the design of the evaluation center is laborious, a poorly designed evaluation center will make candidates feel like acting or even playing a monkey when interviewing high-end talents such as executives, thus causing their disgust. Personality tests and other methods are often suspected of "taking correlation as cause and effect". In fact, correlation has nothing to do with causality. For example, extroversion is positively related to the performance of sales and management positions, but it can only explain the correlation, but it cannot be concluded that it is a causal relationship. In addition, because team attributes are not equal to the simple addition of personal attributes. Therefore, those who use the statistical summary of individual evaluation as the tools and methods of team ability evaluation can not accurately show the collective attributes. If we want to evaluate the top management team, we must develop evaluation tools based on team attributes. 3, easy to make mistakes In order to apply evaluation tools and overcome the limitations of tools, the evaluation of executives often needs to be evaluated by "human" judges and cross-verified. As a "human", judges are often "internally disturbed" by some human characteristics. The three most prominent points in actual combat are: a. Impression of predecessor. Many enterprises are deeply dissatisfied with the former executives of vacant positions, or feel sorry for the departure of former executives. Therefore, the strong dissatisfaction or strong nostalgia for the predecessor has become a "hard lever" and "hard standard" lingering in the minds of the judges. However, making up for the shortcomings of the predecessors does not guarantee that the new executives will be competent. We should see that the shortcomings of former executives are essentially lack of ability; Similarly, the continuation of the advantages of former executives cannot guarantee that new executives can adapt to the new environment. B, the confidant shall prevail. The judges who choose executives are often the executives of enterprises or higher-level decision makers. In their daily work, they often feel "high and low" and "bosom friends are hard to find". Therefore, once you meet someone who feels like you, you will have a feeling of "seeing each other for a long time" and feel that "the more you look at it, the more appropriate it is". Or once you meet someone who thinks "I have the wrong idea", you can directly judge "this person can't." C, heavy hard light soft. Many enterprises often grow and develop by virtue of a certain specialty. Therefore, when selecting executives, they often attach "extra" importance to these very "hard" conditions, such as experience and skills. This phenomenon is particularly obvious in enterprises with strong technical/professional complex and technical background as the top leader. At this time, the "soft" qualities such as emotional intelligence that they should have carried out for candidates will be unconsciously left behind. They forgot an old saying in the executive headhunting industry: "Hire because of experience, fire because of personality". In fact, as a rational judge, if you want to choose a really suitable executive, you must always keep in mind the "three matches" mentioned above, and remember that the real selection criteria for new executives can only be the requirements of work, team and enterprise environment. Moreover, this evaluation must be carried out at the request of the new senior management team to be formed and the new enterprises to be developed. Third, the solution of executive evaluation So, how can we effectively solve the difficulties of "impenetrable", "inaccurate" and "error-prone" in executive evaluation, and really choose qualified executives for ourselves? Undeniably, the scientific and standardized implementation of recruitment process and effective recruitment process management (especially the training and management of judges) are the most important foundation and guarantee. But considering that there are many articles discussing these topics. Limited by space, I would like to share with you the following two aspects of actual combat. 1, multi-pronged, comprehensive evaluation. It is precisely because it is difficult to know people that it is even harder to know executives. Therefore, we need to go beyond the general interview methods, means and processes, and make a comprehensive and three-dimensional evaluation of candidates with a systematic, dynamic, historical and developmental perspective, by comprehensively using resume screening, questionnaire test, in-depth interview, evaluation center and actual combat drills. For the core qualities required by candidates, we should start with the career development process of candidates, colleagues and friends, and conduct in-depth exploration. Understand his childhood, education and work, understand the changes of his family, relatives, friends and colleagues at each stage, evaluate his present situation from his "development track" and predict his future development space and direction. The reason why we should pay special attention to a person's "growth process" is because it plays a vital role in a person's experience accumulation, ability training and the formation of values. Moreover, the abilities and qualities that an executive should have are not acquired in frequent knocks or ever-changing titles, but can only be truly formed in a fixed position (at least in a comparable and coherent position) through long-term accumulation and experience. Fortune magazine has published a list of "future CEO candidates". All the future CEO candidates on the list have worked in the same company for more than ten years. As Steven Kerr, the project leader of "Leadership Training" at Goldman Sachs, said, "The real experience of a good leader is to work hard for a long time in a challenging shopping mall." In this all-round, three-dimensional in-depth exploration and evaluation, one of the problems that judges need to pay attention to is that, first of all, a systematic evaluation framework and ideas should be established around the evaluation criteria drawn up in advance. Don't dive into a certain detail at the beginning, but try to establish a comprehensive understanding and macro understanding, and then gradually understand the characteristics of a certain aspect step by step. Discuss the details under the guidance of the big evaluation framework. In addition, due to the special status of executives, we will put more emphasis on "having both ability and political integrity and putting morality first". However, when selecting candidates, it is often based on the feelings and judgments of business ability and business experience, not from morality. At this time, we should pay more attention to the 360-degree all-round inspection. This is what Liu Chuanzhi said, "Choosing people by the back of the head". What do you think of the back of your head? Might as well use Samuel. Samuel johnson's method: "The best way to measure a person is to see how he treats people who are useless to him." See how he treated all kinds of people and things in his previous job, especially those that had nothing to do with the boss. At this time, the quality of background investigation is very important. For the executives who plan to hire important positions, they should not simply accept the survey results of headhunting companies, but should personally investigate and verify them. We can ask candidates to contact the superiors, colleagues, subordinates and partners of the original work unit to conduct systematic research. The advantage of this is that, in addition to verifying the actual performance and demonstrated ability and quality in this work experience, it can also test the popularity relationship of the candidate in the original work unit at the same time, and confirm the hidden quality of the candidate by investigating the friends and colleagues recommended by the candidate. When necessary, these interviewees can also be asked to provide other interviewees. 2. Mastering methods and improving people's ability is actually a job with strong "experience dependence". Even if you can use tools to evaluate and help. However, the solution and judgment of evaluation data still need to rely on experience and the subsequent insight and judgment. There is no better way to gain experience except through active reference and a lot of actual combat. Among all valuable experiences, the experience of "asking questions" is what judges need to learn and gain most. Just like Daniel, chairman of Yikang Xianda. Mei Lan said, "If you don't ask questions, people will talk to you about your resume." So, what is a "good question"? Give a few examples: A, "Please describe in detail the most difficult decision you have made, including the background of the decision, the difficulties you encountered, the subsequent progress, and the experience, lessons or gains you gained from it." Why do you ask this question? There is a simple reason. A person with real executive experience must have had the experience of facing difficult decisions, and this experience of difficult decisions or dilemmas is precisely the necessary condition for managers to mature. When he describes the decision-making process, you have a chance to hear the truth and gold content from the details he describes. If a candidate is full of platitudes and scenes, or always says "we or our company", or is vague and vague, it means that he has not experienced the experience of difficult decision-making and the pain of making decisions alone. And these are obviously things that executives often face. B. "Talk about the biggest mistake you have made or the biggest setback you have experienced in your career growth (please also provide detailed information such as time, place, person, cause, process and result)". The reason why I ask this question is because real growth is learned from failure. People with more management experience make more decisions and make more mistakes. If a person thinks for a long time but can't figure out what "valuable mistakes" he has made, it can only show that either his executive experience is just a senior messenger who plays soy sauce, and he has not really made independent decisions; Or even if he makes a decision independently, he has no habit of introspection. Moreover, a person who can only brag about how successful and brilliant he was in the past, with a sense of superiority in his heart, is a dangerous thing for enterprises and senior management teams anyway. In fact, through such questions, listening to the story of the candidate, success or failure, we can also see that his management thoughts, thinking habits, value judgments and so on are "important but not easy to find" for the selection and evaluation of senior executives. Apart from the experience of asking questions, of course. Because the selection of executives often depends on the strength of external headhunting companies. In the choice of headhunters, we also need to learn from and accumulate experience. You even need to interview the headhunting consultant who provides services for yourself, to see if he has real talent and practical knowledge, and to understand their work team, working procedures, working methods and workflow management. More importantly, it is necessary to ensure that "the person who takes the job and the person who works are the same person, or at least the same level". Conclusion: Executive evaluation is an endless chess game. In fact, no matter how perfect the selection and assessment of senior executives is, it will also leave shortcomings because of the inherent characteristics and difficulty of this work. The phenomenon that the success rate of airborne executives has not been high is proof. Therefore, even if external executives are hired, the evaluation work is far from over. How will you manage the first batch of 100 crucial new executives? How to evaluate? How to evaluate after one year and two years? How to develop? What conditions and conveniences should you create within the organization to help new executives work smoothly? How to adjust your organizational structure, corporate culture and salary and welfare policies? How do you establish an internal mechanism and platform for leadership development and manager training and assessment, so as to turn these external executives into internal talents and "soldiers"? And let them be constantly tested, experienced and evaluated in the actual combat of the enterprise? How to promote the construction and ability improvement of the internal management talent echelon through the introduction of "executive talents" and "executive coaches"? We all hope that the enterprise can be evergreen. Whether the most suitable leader can always be selected in different development periods of an enterprise is one of the most important determinants of whether the enterprise can be evergreen. How to select, evaluate and use executives will be an endless chess game.