In the many hiring cycles I’ve been involved in, I heard it. I’ve even spoken it.
Hire the person who could do your job, not just the job you’re trying to fill. Or the person who could be your manager, or your manager’s manager, or the CEO.
That’s how organizations get stronger. That’s how the bench gets deeper. That’s how you stockpile talent.
Just remember one little thing. The trains still have to run. Today.
When you are filling an open position with a new hire, you have work to be done right now. It is true that you should always look for candidates with positive upside potential. You don’t want your team to stagnate in completing the tasks of today only, without the ability to follow and build upon your strategic vision. But losing sight of performing against your team’s current deliverables can be damaging, even fatal, to your career trajectory.
Consider these 3 reasons to resist hiring the next CEO for your front-line opening.
You’ve got work to catch up on.
In my experience, hiring a new employee is urgent. Typically, there is no warning that you are about to have an open position on your roster. An employee gives you his 2 week notice and he’s off to greener pastures. If he is customer facing, you can bet for those 2 weeks he’s dialed back his work satisfying customers. But it hasn’t been that way for just 2 weeks. More than likely its been that way for the 6 weeks it took him to locate and begin competing for the other job. Oh, and perhaps he had been disenchanted with his role on your team even before his job search started.
On the other hand, maybe you are letting an employee go as a result of poor performance. Chances are you’ve observed behavior that was ineffective or even harmful to your overall strategy. You followed your organization’s performance management protocol and now you’re at termination. Depending on your company’s process, weeks or months have elapsed since you began on that path. That means ill effects of your employee’s work have been accumulating within your team and with your customers.
In either case, you find yourself in damage control with your customers and you still need to get a new employee hired, trained and contributing. Even if you and your organization are great at onboarding new employees, it will take you six weeks to fill the open position and 3 more months to start seeing any positive results.
You must focus on solving your current problem. Again, always look for upside in your new hires. Just don’t forget that you need the person who can hit the ground running and solve problems today with your customers and your team.
Those other roles aren’t open yet.
You’re solid in your position. So is your boss. And so is her boss. None of you are on the way up or on the way out at the moment. So, don’t worry about that right now.
It is important to establish a strong bench on your team. After all, you’ve heard the conventional thinking that if there isn’t somebody on your team capable of taking your job, then your organization can’t afford to promote you.
That’s ridiculous.
In all my years in direct sales and sales leadership, I’ve never once seen this hypothesis play out. Leaders who are promoting other leaders don’t think for more than a moment about who will take your place if you happen to be the best candidate for a promotion. It is assumed that you’ll figure that out. No leader who is truly worthy of taking the next step would allow the team she is ascending from to implode from lack of talent.
Strengthen your bench by hiring employees who have further potential. But if you build a team filled with employees who are preoccupied with getting your job, you’ll find yourself fighting political battles when you should be solving customer problems and growing your business.
You aren’t the first place your company will look for the next CEO.
Here’s a news flash. Your current executive team is not holding out hope that they’ll find a future CEO in your ranks.
The executive and senior leadership teams in today’s organizations tend to be exclusive clubs. Players on these teams often rise to this level in one organization, then become expert at moving from firm to firm as professional executives. A few will rise to CEO.
Rarer today is the CEO that rises from an entry level role or climbs the executive ranks by demonstrating top performance in her functional area. It still happens, though it has become a novelty rather than the norm.
Organizations have become acutely focused on quarterly results, return on investment, and market capitalization. This has led to an aversion to risk that doesn’t allow the vision and investment of developing top leaders from the ranks. It isn’t baseball. There is no time to nurture a prospect from single A ball to the hall of fame. Company’s need to hire hall of famers on their first try.
You’ll hear from folks helping to guide your hiring process that you are the source for on boarding future CEO’s. That sounds nice. But you need someone who can mop the floor and fix the broken glass. Don’t forget that.
Your personal leadership brand depends on how well you keep delivering results through the interruptions of staffing gaps that come with the territory. Don’t get caught up thinking your company’s destiny is dependent on hiring the next superstar. You’ll miss candidates who have the potential to do great work today. I’ve seen it and I’ve done it.
Hire the person who is smart enough and eager enough to move to the next level, but who is clear on what you need from them today.
Just keep the trains running for now.
Lead well.
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