THE OFFICE

First, a few updates. If you're a tennis player and haven't yet filled out my silly survey, I'd be so grateful if you did. And feel free to share with others. Replies come to me without any identification.

• Also, my friend's husband who was in the cardiac ICU is so well. Once out of rehab, he has worked like a demon to get stronger. He recently went back to visit the hospital and made his nurse cry, she was so amazed at how he was doing. His family and friends are so grateful for your prayers and good wishes.
• You probably think I spend all my time playing tennis, going on trips and taking photographs, right? Well sometimes I'm productive and this week I had to create something for work which was 400 times harder than my usual writing. The biggest challenge was not using beaten to death work phrases, but it's incredibly hard to avoid. . This project made my brain hurt so much that there was nothing left for a more fun piece, so I'm sharing what I wrote for my business, A3 Search and Talent Management. And as a neighbor in the old hood always says "I'm never too busy for your referrals"

I promise a more interesting and engaging piece next week.

When to Hire a Search Firm

If you anticipate hiring a new leader for your nonprofit, there are many considerations that can help you shape how your search committee moves forward. I’ve compiled this to share some of the things I’ve learned over the last 30+ years in nonprofit search and HR.  It's taken time and experimentation (and yes, some errors, for sure) to develop a nuanced understanding of the implications of how certain decisions manifest later on, impacting an organization’s future. 

After working with board hiring committees, CEOs, staff and many, many  candidates, I’ve developed best practices for my search firm that support productive leadership transitions, aligning candidate qualifications with organizational needs. Here are a few things I’ve learned:

• The person you choose to hire will impact the organization's future, no matter who he or she  is. 
• No one candidate will be perfect. Understanding the organization’s challenges and a candidate’s growth areas ensures there won’t be significant holes. 
• It’s rare that everyone agrees. Disparate viewpoints can mean engaged discussions leading to a better-informed hire. 
• Weigh quicker ramp-up against longevity. While it’s possible to have both, in general there’s a question of how long someone with more experience will remain engaged, versus how much time would a hungrier candidate with less experience, need to get up to speed? 
• Whenever a senior leadership position is open, staff tend to have increased responsibilities and are nervous about who their next boss will be.If at all possible, keep them in the loop and be aware of how much they’re juggling.
• Sitting on a board is a commitment requiring navigation of organizational oversight with a full-time job, often a challenge.
• While there is often an urgency to fill a position to alleviate staff overload and a leaderless organization, a well-executed search is worth the time it takes and is best not rushed.
• Letting go of a bad hire sucks time, money and energy, decreasing productivity and moving an organization away from mission .It’s also detrimental to staff morale and can lead to other departures.
• Setting up an onboarding plan that articulates Executive Committee expectations is an important part of a successful transition.

Job Posting vs. Full Search 

While it makes sense to rely on website postings for entry and mid-level openings, because the health and future of an organization will be shaped significantly by the next leader hired, a more strategic approach is called for.  Measure twice, cut once, as the saying goes.  For a successful hire to be made, there needs to be alignment, all kinds of alignment. Like Roger Federer, who appears to make his tennis look “effortless” yet has spent his life perfecting it, having all parts of your search aligned may seem obvious and straightforward, but achieving it takes knowledge, experience and a well-tested process to achieve. 

Search committee members need to be aligned on what the priorities for the position are, anyone assisting with the search needs to be aligned with the committee, the requirements of the position and compensation need to be aligned with the responsibilities, the candidates presented need to have experience aligned with what’s required, and the candidate’s understanding of the position needs to align with the search committee’s. That’s a lot of aligning. When you hire a retained search firm, aligning is built into the process you would go through. 

One of the things I do is get feedback from between 25 and 50 stakeholders, whether board members, donors, staff, volunteers, partner organizations or clients. Raising different viewpoints leads to important discussions and prioritizing. Inviting more people into the process earlier on also leads to better buy-in once a new leader is appointed. 

There are of course other things we search people do: provide you with synthesized data about what your stakeholders think, create compelling job scopes, share compensation data you don’t have access to, advise about offer packages, research like organizations, cold call passive candidates and reach out to many many people, conduct efficient screening interviews, provide executive summaries, create interview formats with questions and assessment tools, schedule, negotiate, do reference checks, extend offers and provide structure for onboarding.

Hire A3 Search and Talent Management

Having a hiring partner who embeds themselves into your organization for the time the hire is being made provides you with a thought partner, project manager, advocate, advisor, scheduler and a corraler.  As someone who has been both in-house and a consultant, has executive search and organizational development experience, I am well equipped to help you with your next search and would be happy to talk more about A3 Search and Talent Management’s services.  Here’s  a list of my current and prior clients