Newswise — Once upon a time and not in the very distant past, CEOs decided who their successors would be and asked their boards to ratify their choice.
Those days have long passed. Boards of Directors now take the lead in selecting the next CEO. Boards also know that the process is fraught with considerable risk. There are too many cases where wrong decisions have been made; despite going through what was considered a thorough selection process. Wrong CEO decisions can be both costly and disastrous to an organization's well being.
Given the unique nature of a CEO job and the many and complex variables required for success in addition to factors such as luck and timing, a selection process will never eliminate the risk of a bad choice. Some boards have described choosing a new CEO as a crapshoot.
Making the process less of a gamble and increasing the odds of making the right choice is the goal of Robert Muschewske (Moo-chef-ski), senior vice president of Executive Services at Minneapolis-based Personnel Decisions International.
During a leadership consortium Oct. 29-30 at the Westin Hotel in St. Louis, Muschewske will discuss how he works with boards of directors to design and implement processes for selecting CEO's and other top executives, something he has been doing for more than a decade.
He will also challenge his colleagues to use their considerable scientific and business knowledge to make selection processes even stronger and more useful to boards of directors.
The consortium is being sponsored by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, whose members bring science to a wide range of workplace issues.Building a strong and talented executive team starts at having the right person at the top, says Muschewske. "In fact, selecting a new CEO is arguably a board's most important accountability. And boards understand that it is their job and not the current CEO's," he said.
Muschewske says there are two key factors in making a good CEO decision. One is to have a clear understanding of the nature of the job and the organizational context in which it must function. The other is focused on assessing the qualities of the candidates.
He says that generally most of the attention in a job search is focused on the candidates themselves rather than the job. Both factors are needed to increase the chances of making a good selection, Muschewske says.
In looking for an edge in finding the best person/job fit, boards are recognizing the need for science-based information, particularly in adding value-added facts and data that will supplement resume, references and performance appraisals about the candidates.
In other words, says Muschewske, getting the right person/job fit.
Industrial-organizational psychologists, like Muschewske, have considerable expertise and understanding of the requirements of the right job/person fit that can improve the odds of making a sound selection decision.
Key to a CEO search, says Muchewske, is an understanding of the unique characteristics of the company, what makes it strong and what challenges the next CEO will face. "A company has to know what it is and where it is going. For example, is it a company where achieving world-class standards of operational excellence is of paramount importance? Is it a company that must develop innovative strategies to lead it to the next level of growth? Is it a company that has a strong management team or is one that needs to rebuild or restructure its leadership team?
"Answers to questions like these have a significant bearing on the skill set or profile needed in the next CEO," he says.
Once approved by the board, this set of competencies becomes the measuring stick for CEO candidates.
Muschewske lists a variety of competencies critical to the success of a CEO, including inspirational leadership, passion for operational excellence, strategic vision, industry knowledge, team builder, personal integrity and personal impact. However, he cautions, that the needed competencies differ from company to company.
It's a process that works well, says Muschewske. Boards find it valuable in helping to make a selection decision. The process forces them to think very clearly about the future of the company and what sort of person could best be running it.
Still, Muschewske wonders how the process can be made even stronger and more accurate. He feels it can and challenged his I-O colleagues to use their scientific skills to strengthen the CEO selection process to make it more company specific. What might work for one company may not for another. "We must take our assessment techniques to the next level," he told his colleagues.
He will be one of several speakers analyzing a variety of leadership characteristics at the "Leadership at the Top" consortium Oct. 28-29 at the Westin Hotel in St. Louis. To see more about the conference, including the speakers and their topics, go to http://www.siop.org and click on the fall consortium homepage.
The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) is an international group of 6,000 industrial-organizational psychologists whose members study and apply scientific principles concerning people in the workplace. For more information about SIOP, including Media Resources, which lists nearly 2,000 experts in more than 100 topic areas, visit http://www.siop.org
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