Confronting the Challenge

How to Improve Performance with Execution Built on Solid, Time-Proven Fundamentals.

The “situation”

(the combination of circumstances at a given time that produce a problem)

The leaders of America’s top companies face a serious

problem that affects every aspect of their performance.

Every year, these companies launch new strategic

initiatives aimed at growing the bottom line – and every

year, the majority struggle to deliver on the desired

expectations.

Multiple sources have observed that the vast majority

of these failures are not limited to leadership issues but

are often the result of both leadership challenges and a

corporate environment that breeds failure. Unfortunately,

an organization that is not focused on execution – even

one with the strongest executives – will rarely succeed.

At the other end of the performance spectrum, however,

there are companies that have created an environment

where their strategic intents succeed at a far greater rate.

In those cases, credit for success is often attributed to the

culture of the organization as a whole, and likely identified

and acknowledged enthusiastically by its leadership.

What is the difference between success and failure for these companies?

The usual “suspects”

(deserving to be regarded with suspicion)

Analysts have suggested that strategic failures are often related to one or

more of the following issues:

✦✦ “…the biggest factor of all may be executive inattention…”

✦✦ “…there is often surprisingly little follow-through…”

✦✦ “Less than 15% of companies routinely track how they perform…”

✦✦ “It’s the execution of the strategy that produces results…”

✦✦ “…not a ‘quick-fix’ approach…”

✦✦ “…the longer-term commitment required…”

✦✦“…requires leaders to stay engaged in the effort…”

✦✦ “…leaders must reinforce the importance…in their regular

communications and in the ways that they manage their business

and people…”

Wharton Business School, AMA, INSEAD/CIMA, and Motorola University

These observations point to a conundrum that prevents organizations

from focusing on, committing to, and managing strategic efforts

over time

The “conundrum”

(an intricate and difficult problem)

“There is a clear correlation between the tenure and role

of the CEO and the longterm performance of the

companies they work for….”

— Conference Board CEO

Survey: Why CEO’s Fall

and at the same time “There is a dramatic and catastrophic downward

trend in the tenure of our CEOs, and their terminations are attributed

to company performance.”

— Crist Associates

2007 Executive Survey

The role of leadership in the longterm performance of organizations

has always been a significant factor in success. No one can deny that

great leaders are an instrumental part of any great organization.

The “response”

(something constituting a reply or a reaction)

Unfortunately, there is an alarming downward trend of CEO and C-suite

tenure in corporate America. This declining tenure usually results in

leadership aggressively pursuing short-term, rapid improvements in

the organization – a pursuit that often fails to realize the desired

value and then leads to leadership turnover. Thus, organizations have a

real conundrum, a self-perpetuating downward spiral in performance.

The following data get at the heart of the conundrum.

Declining leadership tenure …

✦✦Average CEO tenure has dropped from 9.5 years to 2.5 years since 1995

✦✦ 60% of CEOs stay in the chair for fewer than 5 years

✦✦ 63% of CFOs stay for fewer than 5 years

✦✦79% of COOs stay for fewer than 3 years (with a trend toward fewer

COOs than ever before)

Crist Associates 2007 Executive Survey on Tenure and Volatility

… contributes to strategy execution failure

✦✦ 9 out of 10 companies fail to execute strategy

✦✦ 85% of executive teams spend less than one hour a month on the

management of strategy

✦✦Only 5% of the workforce understand the strategy

✦✦Only 25% of managers have incentives linked to the overall strategy

Balanced Scorecard Collaborative

You have likely lived through the typical response to the conundrum

multiple times – a series of urgent, reactionary decisions that can often

be more damaging than stabilizing. An everyday analogy is the tendency

of a driver to over-correct and jerk a car back into the road after it

suddenly veers in a slick patch.

As everyone knows, this quick desperation can cause great damage

or even complete catastrophe

It is common knowledge that an Executive needs to be surrounded by an excellent team to be successful. The problem is that you don’t have the time to hire your entire staff, so you need assistance in bringing the talent to your company so that you can reach your goals and vision. That is where Recruiting agencies come in.

However, if I had a dime for each time I hear this:  Recruiting companies are wasting my time”  I would be rich enough to write articles for a living.

Have you ever been recruited by a Recruiting agency?  How many questions do they ask you?

If you are like most, the answer is 3-5 questions and 10-15 minute phone call. Not only does this waste a clients time, but it wastes qualified candidate’s time by going on interviews that they are not a good match for or would be uninterested in given full understanding of the position responsibilities.

As a purchaser of this kind of service, what do you think that is worth? Surely not the 15-20 thousand dollar average fee.

How much time do you think that you or someone that works for you, spends doing an agency’s job for them? Do you do this for other vendors that you do business with?  If I am paying someone a fair sum to provide me a product or service for my company (or personally) I should not be doing their job for them.

The technical recruiting, staffing and consulting business is in an unbelievable state.  Companies make huge profits to technically staff candidates and rarely meet them in person and almost never ask a single technical question. Unbelievable but true.  If you don’t believe it, post a well written fictional technical resume online in which you have NO qualification for and see how many recruiting agencies send you on an interview. The result will astonish you and make you do exactly what we did. Change the rules of the game.

In the 1990′s before everyone had a PC and everyone had internet access, Search Companies had something to offer.  They had a database of candidates that had applied to them via fax or in person. These candidates were unavailable to the masses. 

The rules of the game changed when Monster.com,  Atlanta Computerjobs.com and other resume and search engines came to market.

Today’s marketplace allows companies to search for candidates themselves if they choose to pay the access fees to Monster.com. Most Staff Augmentation firms will tell you they have the best people but they are drawing off of the same pool of candidates that anyone can get. So, where is the advantage? How can you determine who to use and who will not waste your time? After all, if you had enough time to screen candidates yourself, you would not need to pay the service fees.

Here is a set of questions that you can ask your vendors to quickly determine their competency.

First, determine if the person you work with is a “full desk” recruiter. This means that the person calling on you and gathering information about your requirements is ALSO the one that calls the candidates and does the searching.

If they are not a full desk recruiter, they split the duties between Account managers (contact with you) and Recruiters (contact with the candidates) .  Most companies split the duties.

If the duties are split, set a conference call with both the account manager and recruiter on the line or invite them into your office to interview them.

Good Questions are:

Do you meet all of the candidates that you submit to clients IN PERSON?

What types of questions do you ask these candidates?

Tell me what the typical responsibilities of a  ___________ (type of position, Ie Architect, QA, PM etc). This should be whatever positions you normally staff for.

Can you give me ANY technical questions that you ask your candidates off of the top of your head? (crickets and tumbleweeds on this one folks)

At this point there will be some pretty uncomfortable silence in the room.

What do you know about ______________ (type of technology, .net, Business Intelligence, etc.)

What % of people that you initially screen do you think are completely honest when representing themselves on a resume?

How do you determine which ones are technically competent if you don’t ask technical questions.

By this time you will know if you have someone in your office that can actually provide you with value.

Unfortunately, the Technology industry is full of people that can write a great resume, know little about the technology that they are hired to perform with, and are training on your dime because they were sent by a staffing firm and there were inconsistent interviewing practices by the Staffing firm and the Hiring Company.

I truly believe that inconsistent interviewing of candidates and subsequent hiring of unqualified staff is a factor in why so many projects fail.

Kevin Langill

President

Project Solutions