Finding the Right "Head Coaches" for Your Organization
So we are almost a month out of pro football, many months out of college football, and MLB spring training is currently underway…But we’ll continue to see moves and shuffles of coaches within and between leagues…It’s fascinating how many player and coaching moves happen in the off-season. Almost as if teams are hoping that if they randomly put different “player pieces” in place, they will find the magical recipe for success.
There are some great examples of coaches, that based upon track records and past performance, were put into more challenging roles only to fail miserably. Here are some fun ones:
- Steve Spurrier was an all-world football coach at the University of Florida (122 wins, 27 losses in 12 years), but went for the money at the pro level and bombed (12 wins and 20 losses; two years with the Washington Redskins).
- Bill Callahan was literally given the keys to the kingdom via a Super Bowl team during his first season coaching the Oakland Raiders in 2002. The team went 11-5 Callahan’s first year, but was demolished in the Super Bowl. This talented team then went just 5-11 in 2003, and Callahan got fired … only to get a sweet job as Head Coach of one of the most storied college programs ever, the Nebraska Cornhuskers. In four years, he led two losing seasons (unheard of in Nebraska) – and was fired.
- Matt Doherty was a former University of North Carolina basketball player, and was given his first head coaching job with Notre Dame in ‘99, and went a respectable 22-15. UNC came calling the very next year – one of the top three hoops programs of all time – and in three short years Doherty nearly single-handedly wrecked the program … including one miserable 8-20 season.
So what can we learn from the world of coaching and professional sports?
It would seem that to put together winning teams in organizations, you need to have the right “coaches” or leaders in place. After all, in today’s economy, with rules of business changing, more emphasis on creativity, innovation, engaging employees to be more empowered to think differently etc, and all aspects of talent, it takes leaders that can inspire, and motivate their teams. But with executives set to retire and with our younger generations a bit more restless, where do the new leaders come from?
So what are companies typically doing to plan for the future?
It’s all fine and good to think about who might make a good replacement if the CEO were to be hit by a bus, but that focus is a bit myopic. After all, it’s not just about replacement planning, but succession management. That is, thinking beyond the here and now of a replacement, and more around leadership continuity, and who has the potential to be developed for future roles of increasing complexity.
While some companies like Arrow, Aetna, and Chevron understand the need to critically think about the future in terms of leadership talent and succession, and the need for bench-strength and how to build or buy that expertise, a recent WSJ article highlights a PriceWaterHouse study done with 1000 Directors at the biggest US public companies. In the 2009 study, over a third of the respondents indicated they were not satisfied with their companies’ succession plans (for one reason or another).
Why are company leaders not happy with their company’s succession plan?
First of all, having folks get around a table and discuss ‘who’s got it and who doesn’t’ can be uncomfortable. But hey, lots of conversations are uncomfortable, right? That aside, many companies get hung up on the concept of potential or “the X factor”. How do you know when someone has the “X-factor”? This question is a key part of succession management as it has direct implications for who becomes part of succession management programs and who ultimately has resources invested in them for ongoing development. Unfortunately, much of the research on high-potential and succession management points to a lack of objective measures and/or viewpoints. That is, how do I measure who has high potential and who do ask for their opinion? Seemingly simple but deceptive questions….
“Ok! who wants it?”
There is this sports movie called “The Replacements” I love to watch over and over. Keanu Reeves stars as a washed up college football quarterback who is stepping in as a pro quarterback during an NFL strike and playing for coach Gene Hackman. Reeves blows a game early in the movie by panicking and handing off the ball on a last second play. The running back gets stopped short of the goal line and they lose. When Reeves defends his play choice by telling Hackman “I read blitz”, Hackman merely looks at him, shakes his head and says “when the game is on the line, winners always want the ball”.
Aspiration or “fire in the belly” is a substantial predictor of success in future roles. Yet many companies I have worked with rarely ask their high potential participants if they even want positions of increasing complexity and difficulty. While most participants may feel honored and want it, they need to be asked…Derailment starts with putting people into spots in which they are not qualified, or even worse, are not motivated to succeed. Drive, energy, risk-taking, and achievement orientation are all key motivational factors that can either facilitate or derail a person’s success for future roles.
Cuz you got…Personality!
When was the last time you saw a truly successful manager hole themselves up in their office all day, every day and never talk to anyone? As individuals create their own successes within organizations and begin to be awarded more responsibility, personality factors become more important assets in a person’s probability of success. Call it what you will, but there are specific interpersonal aspects such as a person’s integrity stability, sociability, influence, optimism, collaboration and self-awareness that become key aspects when it comes to building the strategic relationships that are so key at higher levels within an organization or business.
I can see the wheels turning…
As trite as it sounds, there is something to the whole notion of intelligence. The ability to continuously learn and take in new information, see things in a conceptual way, break them down and visualize the second and third order effects of decisions (e.g., buying a business, a merger, discontinuing a product line, etc), particularly complex decisions has often been seen as “table stakes” for being able to take on roles of increasing complexity and responsibility. And just like personality, not something you can necessarily develop or change substantially…..
The Final Straw…
Personality, intelligence, motivation…all important factors to success in the game of talent, high potentials and succession. Many of these are consistent and stable and unlikely to change, and others can facilitate or hinder growth and development. But there are still other factors that suggest and predict success in later career such as:
- Cultural fit with the organization
- Leadership capabilities and how one develops and manages others
- How one influences and challenges the status quo
Um, so now what…
Clear as mud? Look, at the end of the day, the goal should be to have an efficient and effective means of identifying and selecting people that are high potential and that warrant differential investment when it comes to their development (other individuals may also warrant development, but perhaps not to the extent of high potential individuals in pivotal, game-changing roles to the organization). So, my recommendation would be to ask three questions:
- Is this person a fit with our organization? Do they display and embody the values of our organization?
- Has this person consistently and do they still consistently continue to perform by exceeding what is expected of them?
- Through assessment and other means, do the actions of this person align with how we define high potential (through personality, motivation, intelligence, etc)?
If the answer is yes to all three, then the organization has a warranted reason for investing more resources into these individuals and accelerating their development, most likely through challenging and risk-taking assignments and responsibilities.
The Bottom-Line
Remember, there is a cost to everything, whether it’s the cost associated with doing something or the cost associated with NOT doing something. It might cost you thousands of dollars of tangible dollars to create and develop a talent/succession management and assessment process for increasing the probability of success. The costs of NOT taking such actions have often taken their toll on organizations in the form of early turnover due to the “chosen ones” simply not being the right fit, not having the right talent or ready to assume next level responsibilities. These bad fits at manager or executive levels can derail at 1 year or less and can cost the company in excess of six-figures when cost of recruitment, training, salary/benefits are taken into account.
So, back to the metaphor of sports... When it comes to human capital and successors for the head “coaching gigs” of the future…there is obviously more to consider than how the coach did in the past…It’s about moving the X’s and O’s around, but in a meaningful way that minimizes risk and creates winning plays.
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