“Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do.”
--Bertrand Russell
“Why is talent getting harder to find?” Just a few months ago, one of my long term clients, a managing architect, asked that very question. He’d been through the experience over the past two years of hiring 3 new architects, only to gradually let them go because of their ineptitude. But architecture has no unique grip on the problem.
The evidence for failure for newly appointed and promoted executives in both the corporate and non-profit sectors is alarming: Harvard Business School reported ...
Why such a poor success rate?
That’s a far more complex question than most think. A recent research report by a hot young entrepreneur found that the issue is all about the “attitude” of the hire, not his or her “hard” competencies. Still others suggest that it’s the inability of the person to adapt to the new culture, while others argue that it’s their failure to build relationships. Historically, surveys have found that poor communication is the problem.
Candidly, each answer, taken alone, is a bad case of bullshit. You can’t solve a complex problem with a simple answer. More significantly, not only do we not know what really makes for corporate success, we also don’t fully know what makes for executive success.
But we do know how to improve the chances of success. We know how to raise the batting average for both companies and executives. And that’s a far more sensible goal to pursue.
Improving success rates
Better firms bring their analytical skills to the management selection process. And certainly, that makes basic sense. It typically plays out by having the person interviewed by a number of relevant managers. But too often, it stops with the use of the team’s analytical thinking, a significant error.
The notion that analytical thinking, per se, can be the ultimate key to problem solving success is off base right from the get-go.
Auguste Rodin’s bronze masterpiece, “The Thinker,” is one of the most familiar sculptures in today’s world. You’ll find small copies on many coffee tables throughout America. But thinking, by itself, is only a partial or truncated value. It requires something else.
For years business execs and corporate boards thought that great thinking ability was all that was necessary in the selection of a new CEO. But after years of failure and a great deal of research, it was found that successful CEOs brought both brilliant thinking skills and a deep knowledge of the relevant corporate industry. Typically, it’s asking for failure to think that because an exec is highly successful in one industry he can be highly successful in another. Sure, there are exceptions to that rule. Louis Gerstner, for example, moved from the finance industry to become the highly successful CEO of IBM. But Gerstner is the exception.
The two constructs of business success are both thinking ability and a large relevant knowledge base. It intrigues me that the two categories, thinking and knowledge, are so often separated. The grade school I attended, for example, had the words “Knowledge Is Power” chiseled into the concrete around the main entrance. But knowledge, by itself too, is only a partial or truncated value. It requires something else.
If I were asked to amend this maxim based upon my many experiences since I last walked through those doors, I’d edit it to say “Thinking and Knowledge Are Power.” That’s because knowledge is powerful only when it is applied properly. And thinking is powerful only when the thinker has a large and accurate base of knowledge on which he can apply his skills.
Indeed, analytical thinking without a significant basis in the relevant disciplines is largely wasted effort. To go back to our original problem, the selection process requires more than critical thinking tools. It requires at least two more disciplines of knowledge: the field for which you’re interviewing (marketing, sales, logistics, etc.) as well as the disciplinary tools of various interviewing processes such as questioning, listening and especially selection relevant tools such as critical incident process.
The point I’m making here is one that the really smart people have the most difficulty learning. And these tend to be the well-educated, high-powered, high-commitment professionals, who occupy key leadership positions in the modern corporation. In particular, these are the very people who need to learn that the way they frame and solve problems can be a source of problems in its own right.