Posted by Warren Carter | Posted on 23-07-2011
Category : Executive Search
Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments, in QualiFind’s website
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In the 2010 Global IBM CEO Study recently published, 1541 CEOs were asked what would be the top leadership qualities required to succeed in the next five years. Represented were 60 countries across 33 industries. The four primary findings were: |
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Today’s complexity is only expected to rise and more than half of CEOs doubt their ability to manage it. Seventy-nine percent of CEOs anticipate even greater complexity ahead. However, one set of organizations we call ‘Standouts’ has turned increased complexity into financial advantage over the past five years.
Creativity is the most important leadership quality, according to CEOs. Standouts practice and encourage experimentation and innovation throughout their organizations. Creative leaders expect to make deeper business model changes to realize their strategies. To succeed, they take more calculated risks, find new ideas and keep innovating in how they lead and communicate.
The most successful organizations co-create products and services with customers, and integrate customers into core processes. They are adopting new channels to engage and stay in tune with customers. By drawing more insight from the available data, successful CEOs make customer intimacy their number one priority.
Better performers manage complexity on behalf of their organizations, customers and partners. They do so by simplifying operations and products, and increasing dexterity to change the way they work, access resources and enter markets around the world. Compared to other CEOs, dexterous leaders expect 20 percent more future revenue to come from new sources.
In addition to these findings, CEOs believed that the world will not simply go back to “business as usual” after the economic downturn. Leaders will need to be able to manage more complex organizations, more robust customer needs and more demanding expectations from shareholders or taxpayers. Eight in ten believe the environment will become considerably more complex, leading to the number one quality from respondents of creativity.
CEOs in the next five years will need to be more creative in the way they deal with everything from the task at hand to the interpersonal challenges they face to the strategies they develop to meet future goals. The question is, “are they up to it?” Time will show that the most successful CEOs in the next five years will be creative rather than pragmatic. After all, they said so themselves. |
Posted by Warren Carter | Posted on 17-07-2011
Category : Executive Search
Posted in QualiFind’s website
| This is a well written and timely commentary on why startups should be engaging a headhunter versus leaving talent acquisition up to the luck of the draw of their network or their VC’s network. We are seeing more venture capital backed startups and we are also continuing to get search assignments that fall into the “starting over” category noted in paragraph 12 of this article. From our side of the desk, it pretty much looks like the old adage regarding the wisdom (or lack thereof) of someone who would step over a dime to pick up a nickel. Read and let us know what you think…”The unemployment rate in America is hovering around 9%. But if you are a competent engineer, sales executive, online marketer or general manager in Silicon Valley, NYC, Boston, or other startup hotspots, the unemployment rate is 0%.
The talent market has gotten as competitive and aggressive as I have ever seen in the last 20 years. CNN recently reported that 40% of the 130,000 job openings in Silicon Valley are for software engineers. Senior executives have never been harder to secure. That’s why, even though it flies in the face of conventional wisdom, I’m advocating that all my portfolio companies hire recruiters when they are trying to fill senior or key positions. Immediately.
Typically, when a young company gets financing and begins to hire, they seek to leverage the network of the founding team and their investors. This network provides some valuable leads and perhaps a few hires. Leveraging existing networks has greater benefits than simply cost savings and convenience. Teams that have worked together in the past simpy are well-positioned to out-execute those that haven’t due to their common history, language and relationships.”
Read more at http://www.quali-find.com/startups-need-to-hire-a-recruiter-now
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Posted by Warren Carter | Posted on 05-06-2011
Category : Executive Search
Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments, in QualiFind’s website
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Call it an “art” rather than a “science” because we’ve had so little time with this new phenomenon of leading remote employees. Time will reveal the best ways to get the most out of this environment in the areas of not only productivity, but also relationships. We’ll learn through experience many techniques for leading employees that we rarely see. In the mean time, here are five helpful ideas that can help you get the most out your long –distance working relationships. |
| Mix in personal discussions once in a while. The remote employee still needs to feel like they’re part of something bigger so sideline conversations on the phone can be just as effective as in person to make them feel like they’re still part of the team. Even if it’s as rare as monthly, call them to talk about anything but work on occasion. This lets them know that you interested in them not just as resources, but as real people. It’s much easier to do this with a nod or a smile at work. Without that contact, we all know something is missing. Taking the extra few minutes once in a while is a great investment.Delegate in a way that gives them freedom and accountability. Dole out assignments with the end in mind, giving the remote employee some freedom in how they get things done. Getting the end result is critical – the what that needs to be done – but giving them flexibility on how to do it will keep the “creative juices” flowing and the work interesting. Accountability can be reinforced via self-managed checklists or progress reports. Remote employees pride themselves on being able to work independently; therefore, mechanisms to help them measure their own results work well. Further, they don’t perceive the remote manager as looking over their shoulder when they’re completing the progress reports themselves.Humble yourself. This can obviously be applied whether working with remote employees or shoulder-to-shoulder, but take the opportunity to validate them when you can. This can be done in two ways. First, just say it. “Look, you’re the expert on this topic. What do we need to do to keep moving in the right direction?” Another way would be to end conversations with “Before we close this meeting, I’d like to know if there’s anything else you’d do if you were in my shoes in this situation”. Staying humble will help the remote employee see you as someone that is self aware and willing to listen to what they have to say when it comes to the important work that they do.Be trustworthy. One way to build trust is to be consistent. Doing what you say you’ll do will ensure that remote employees are “on board” with where you want to go. No matter how big or small the situation, trust is always in the “eyes of the beholder” and they are the “judge and jury” on the matter. So be sure to calculate what you are suggesting or committing to when it comes to even the smallest of issues. Your credibility with them and consequently their willingness to follow you will both increase as a result.Keep your written communication organized and productive. Let’s say you have problem with a project that you’re responsible for and the remote employee is an important person on the team working on the project. Organize your written communication with the following three things: current status, project goal and actions to achieve the goal. The current status may be an outline of things that are going well or going wrong with the project and why. The project goal is the target or outcome of the project that usually remains consistent unless something happens that forces a change. The actions to achieve the goal are straightforward. They are the things being done and by whom to make sure all is on track to ensure success. Focus about 80% of the team’s effort on the actions to accomplish the goal and you will see productivity rise.It is estimated that nearly fifty million people work remotely. We find ourselves as leaders learning “on the fly” ways to get the most out of this reality. Taken together, though, these five ideas give you a road map to short term success in leading remote employees. Through experience, and necessity, we’ll continue to learn new and creative ways to lead from afar. |
Posted by Warren Carter | Posted on 01-06-2011
Category : Executive Search
Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments, in QualiFind’s website
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Having witnessed and participated in successful turnarounds over the years, one or both of the following things are needed to realize short term results improvement.
1.) An emergency
2.) A change in leadership
The word “emergency” usually describes something gone awry. The company turned in record losses for the quarter. The key architect of the best-selling offering left the company. |
| The economy is forcing cutbacks. Employee morale has suddenly plummeted. If you consider how the company deals with any of those things, the “emergency” has the possibility of becoming a catalyst to improving results. At the precipice of making the most difficult decisions such as closing a plant for example, strong leadership finds a way to do something beyond the norm to turn things around. The “emergency” many times drives looking outside the box to find a new way to compete or even survive.A change in leadership, the right kind of leader, can also bring about results improvement in the short term. Effective leaders take advantage of the opportunity to come into a new situation and deal with it quickly. They don’t need motivation from the team. They simply need the courage to make the decisions fast, get things moving in the right direction and turn things around given their new leverage. New leadership can be the key to getting results quickly.Whether due to an emergency or new leadership, the ground is fertile for quick results improvement. When both occur simultaneously, the chances are far greater for significant improvement in the short term. |
