Recommended Reading - How to acquire a team of 'A players’, Globe and Mail

Eric Herrenkohl has written a book on hiring top talent that is a must read for top executives and HR specialists. The book entitled, How to acquire a team of 'A players’ was recently reviewed by Canada’s Globe and Mail. According to the review,

It might well be that nothing has a greater impact on your business than hiring top people – “A players,” in the vernacular of the business world. But most of us worry when we start recruiting for an opening that we could unwittingly end up with a “C player” because it can be hard to differentiate through the normal recruitment process. Hiring seems like a crap shoot – sometimes we win big, and sometimes we lose.

Eric Herrenkohl, who advises companies on recruiting, says it doesn’t have to be that way. But you may have to change your recruiting practices to improve your odds. That will involve sharpening your understanding of where you are likely to find future top performers, and perpetually being in recruiting mode –even when you don’t have an opening, indeed even, he argues, when you’re in an economic trough and cutting back on staff.

… Understanding what you are looking for in recruits can be subtle.

Herrenkohl lays out a clear approach to hiring and finding the right top talent. Check out the book.

Recommended Reading - Successful leadership - How would you know? London School of Business

Sir Andrew Likierman, Professor of Management Practice and dean of London Business School, put together a  fascinating piece of research on how business leaders can effectively measure their success.  The research entitled, Successful leadership - how would you know? appears on the London Business School’s website.   Professor Likierman writes,For those who want to check on their leadership success, for those who appoint leaders and for outsiders (including analysts and competitors) assessing the quality of leadership, checklists of traits are not enough. Nor are comparisons… … What’s needed is how to overcome the measurement problems.  So, a number of preliminary steps are necessary to make sure that measurement is robust.

Preliminary step 1: Agree what we’re measuring … note that this is the beginning, not the end of the story… 

Preliminary step 2: Focus on outcomes, not inputs … Success is about results, not characteristics.

Preliminary step 3: Make sure the data is as robust as possible… 

 Once the preliminary steps are taken the Professor recommends you,  

Step 1: Set up the framework…

Step 2: Use judgement to interpret… 

Step 3: As far as possible, reconcile the needs of different stakeholders…

He concludes,

Successful leadership is about a successful outcome against stated objectives combined with comparisons against a relevant peer group and the way in which opportunities are handled.  

Take the time to read this short article, it’s quite prescient, particularly now during such trying financial times. 

Recommended Reading - Mastering management: managing in a downturn, FT

The Financial Times (registration req.) is running a fascinating and apropos Special Report on Managing in a Downturn.   The Report is broken into a series of parts.  If you are a manager or you are examining the management of a specific company the below stories are worth a read.

1. Time for managers to stand and deliver
   
2. Keeping the global economy afloat
3. Seizing the upside of a downturn
4. The perfect storm  
5. Managing fluctuations  
6. Japan: Hubris, denial and the loss of confidence  
7. Scandinavia: Failed banks, state control and a rapid recovery  
   
8. Lessons from the 1997 Asian economic crisis  
   

Check them out.  

Recommended reading - Meet your new leader - How the fallout from the financial crisis could breed a new type of corporate leader.

Jennifer Reinhold wrote a piece in Fortune that explores the possibility we are entering a new ear of CEOs. Reinhold examines a number of different academic studies and analyses that contend a new ear of CEO leadership is upon us.  According to the story,

… a new model is emerging. Collins (Jim Collins author of Good to Great) thinks that legislative, not executive, skills are now ascendant - that top CEOs will be those who are able to create the conditions for things to get done rather than hand down orders (as Hank Paulson learned, what worked at Goldman Sachs didn’t fly in Congress).

David Gergen, the political expert and director of the CPL at Harvard, agrees. “The CEO of the future is going to have to be someone who deals well with government,” he says. The truth is, these days a CEO cannot fully control his destiny in a world of competing entities, ranging from regulatory agencies to angry shareholders, from consumers to foreign powers.

The ability to look beyond the short term to the horizon and inspire employees is another must, given what looks like a prolonged economic slump. Xerox (XRX, Fortune 500)’s Anne Mulcahy, for example, has brought the company back from the brink by rallying her employees around the challenge itself rather than throwing money at them. At Home Depot (HD, Fortune 500), CEO Frank Blake accepted an annual pay package worth one-quarter of his predecessor’s, and he is also finding creative nonmonetary ways to motivate employees, including giving merit awards for great customer service and assigning store workers more decision-making power.  

There is a degree of truth to the article’s premise but do not expect visionary and imperial CEOs to disappear too quickly.  Anyone interested in executive leadership or growing trends in business should check out the Fortune piece. 

Recommended Reading - Two New Chief Execs with Resumes for a Quick Sale

Kevin Dobbs wrote an incisive piece for the American Banker that focused on newly hired bank CEOs (Alan Fishman for WAMU and Charles Rhinehart for Downey Financial) and what they typically need to bring to the table.  According to Dobbs,

Deep into a pulverizing credit cycle with no clear turning point, newly minted chief executives at banking and thrift companies are increasingly garnering more attention for past experience selling companies—experience that many expect them to have to draw upon soon.

Against a backdrop of mounting investor discontent, analysts said, swift action to salvage shareholder value is the task at hand.

Dobbs does not bring anything new to the table but he does offer a good overview.

Recommended Reading - Merrill, Citi chiefs tap former employers

Wednesday May 7th's Financial Times had an intriguing article by Ben White that examined Cit and Merrill's new CEOs' attempts to hire top talent from their previous employers and re-shape their firms accordingly.

... The moves have been controversial within both banks, with incumbent executives pushed out or moved into new roles.

At Merrill, John Thain has hired a string of former Goldman executives including Peter Kraus to head strategy, Thomas Montag to run global sales and trading, and Noel Donohue to co-head risk management. Some on Wall Street have taken to referring to the bank as Merrill Sachs.

... At Citigroup, Vikram Pandit has hired several former colleagues at Morgan Stanley, including John Havens as chief executive of the investment bank and hedge fund businesses; Don Callahan as chief administrative officer; and Brian Leach as chief risk officer.

The piece is a worthwhile quick read.

Also Read

Deal Journal

Recommended Reading - Merrill's New CEO Gets Kudos From NY Post

Paul Tharp in a story in today's New York Post praised John Thain, Merrill's new CEO, for his efforts to right the Merrill ship.  Take a look, Tharp makes a number of valid comments.