Hire Managers That Excel At Execution… Because They Create Huge Business Impacts (The hiring of team/project managers is critical for strategic execution)

I’ve found that a hidden key to overall corporate success is the effective hiring of project managers. 

Why? They are the ones who ensure the execution of each of the critical projects that make up the overall corporate plan. Most corporate Talent Acquisition functions have standalone hiring processes for executives and college students. My research has found that only one has had a standalone process designed specifically for successfully hiring these critical managers.

So, when project execution is a top strategic issue at your company, corporate executives realize that the managers of strategic teams/projects have such a large business impact not just on execution but also on revenue, growth, and innovation. It’s time for smart talent management leaders to begin to develop a focus on hiring effective managers across the upper middle segment of your organizational chart.

The Many Benefits Of Hiring Effective Managers

For literally decades, I have been urging smart talent leaders to maximize their business impact as the primary goal of strategic recruiting. Because recruiting has the highest business impact of any HR function, it turns out that in a not uncommon case, your company can’t reach its other corporate goals because of strategic execution problems. Recruiting can directly help by developing a focus on finding and landing effective managers with a proven track record for successfully executing difficult projects in your industry. The top benefits from this “focus on recruiting managers” include:

Project execution will improve almost immediately – because you are specifically targeting only the managers who excel at execution and completing projects on time and under budget. Each of these new hires will bring a set of immediately transferable execution tools, skills, experiences, and confidence. When applied, this will improve your execution almost immediately.

Hiring a competitor’s manager will increase your team’s learning – because you are hiring a current manager from one of your direct competitors. You will learn a great deal about that competitor, including their best practices, metrics, execution tools, and future plans. And if you have an effective best practice sharing process, you will be able to quickly spread these execution practices, tools, and tricks to your other managers. You can discover more about the practice of “hiring to learn” here.

If you want to maintain rapid company growth, the external hiring of effective managers becomes essential – if you want to maintain a high corporate growth rate. You simply can’t afford the widespread disruption that occurs when you move a significant number of your current managers around to fill growth positions. So, your best option is to hire already proven external managers when necessary to fill many of your growth slots. 

You won’t have to wait for the development of your current managers in training – because the latest downturn has weakened many management development programs. Most companies don’t have enough “managers in training” to fill vacant and growth manager positions. However, an effective external manager hiring process can help fill that queue because newly hired external managers can get up to speed quickly. That means you won’t have to rush your currently developing managers into service prematurely before they are ready. That premature movement should also be avoided because it will likely frustrate your developing managers, and this early movement may even cause them to fail.

Each newly hired manager will likely bring along additional talent – because you are specifically targeting managers with a successful track record. Bringing them on board may by itself be an additional key selling point for your current applicants. Over the next 6 to 12 months, you can expect that one to three of your new-hire’s best current employees will want to join them at your company.

Losing an effective manager will simultaneously hurt your competitor – my research has found that CEOs are the first to recognize the “we get better, while they get worse” benefit of hiring a manager from your competitor. So, damaging your competitor must be included in the overall ROI calculation. Losing an effective manager will directly “hurt” their former company by causing disruptions within their team, like a loss of focus and direction and an acceleration of their team’s current turnover rate. You can learn more about this “hiring to hurt” practice here. 

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Sourcing Tips For A Manager Focused Recruiting Program

If you’re serious about instituting a recruiting effort that focuses on hiring effective managers, you must first realize that your current sourcing process is likely to be totally ineffective in identifying effective manager targets. However, there are several sources that I have found to be especially effective at identifying the most desirable managers to target. 

Ask candidates and new hires for the names of effective managers – you will need a systematic process for identifying which managers to target. And fortunately, it’s hard to keep the name of a great manager secret. So encourage your best-performing employees and managers to convert the best managers that they know into an employee referral. You should also ask each of your finalists for open positions in this targeted functional area. During their last interview, ask them to provide you with at least three names of effective managers they know. Next, ask each new hire in this functional area to provide you with a handful of names during their onboarding process. I’ve also found that you should ask your employees responsible for benchmarking in this functional area to provide you with the names of top managers they have come across during their work. 

Also, ask for names from outsiders who really know your industry – unfortunately, there is no “professional association of managers” that all top managers join. However, my research has shown that two groups of individuals really know management talent in an industry. The first are officers in industry associations. These officers know industry and functional talent. They are continually trying to identify top managers for speaking assignments, opportunities to author an article, or for future association leadership positions. A second group exposed to many effective managers are your own experienced contractors and the employees of your best vendors. They know good managers because they have worked with so many on their different industry assignments. They are usually willing to provide names (without making a formal referral) because improving your corporation’s business results may lead them to earn more money at your company. 

Use LinkedIn to identify managers who may be overdue for a change – Often, the managers most likely to jump on a new opportunity have been in their current management position for a long time (i.e., more than three years). LinkedIn profiles (Under the experience section) include their time in their current job, a great tool for identifying managers who might be “overdue for change.”

Pay unbundled search firms to provide the names of effective managers – if your team is good at selling top manager candidates but weak at identifying them. Consider using unbundled or competitive intelligence search firms (e.g., RW Stearns ). These search firms specialize in identifying the names of the key employees and/or managers from any company you choose to target. This alternative may cost you money, but it will allow you to focus 100% of your time on selling the identified manager candidates.

Implementation Tips

For those who are serious about implementing an effective manager hiring program. Here are some action steps that I recommend.

• Understand what is meant by focused recruiting – a focused recruiting effort prioritizes key manager jobs that have an above-average impact on business results. So, in the case where improving strategic execution is the corporate goal. A segment of your hiring focuses on (i.e., prioritized) recruiting experienced managers with a track record of excelling at execution within our industry. First, prioritize your own business units so that you focus only on the strategic units that are also struggling the most with execution. Next, you prioritize the manager jobs in these units. And that means these open jobs automatically move to the front of the requisition queue. They are also assigned one of the best-performing recruiters, sourcers, and that team is given a larger recruiting budget. In many cases, the successful hiring executive and recruiter will both receive executive recognition and a reward. I also recommend getting one of your best managers to help with the resume sorting and the final candidate-selling process. 
• Realize that many managers will be willing to consider a new opportunity – A recent survey found that among US workers, “71% were open to new job opportunities.” And there’s no reason to assume managers are less willing to explore new opportunities. Especially because many corporations have instituted layoffs over the last year, hiring freezes, and severe budget cutbacks. All of these factors have made many current managers uncomfortable and wary about their future. So, if your organization offers these targeted managers a chance for more stability, a bigger budget, and even a pay rate that allows them to keep up with inflation, you will find an ample supply of interested managers.
• Identify the corporations with great managers – although you can target any corporation in your industry. I recommend that you first put together a list of the “well-managed corporations” in your industry. Then, these corporations should be targeted first because they are likely to have an abundance of effective managers.
• “Right day” selling may be required – because the best candidates are likely already well-treated. Many of your targeted managers will remain “barely interested” unless their current work situation changes dramatically. And that means that you must continually monitor each of your recruiting target’s work situations. So that you are ready “to act immediately” should they experience “a negative career event in their current jobs.”. Or when you learn that upcoming layoffs may impact their current job security, drastic budget cuts, or ethical issues at their company. You can learn more about right-day candidate selling using this link.
• Sometimes, potential candidates just “need to be asked” – many managers at the top of their game consider it beneath them to “actively look for a job.” And in the same light, they hate getting recruiter calls. However, even though they are not actively looking for a job, some top-performing managers regard it as an honor and a form of recognition when a manager they don’t know proactively reaches out to them. So encourage your top managers in that area to reach out to these “need to be asked” candidates. But do it subtly so that the initial call doesn’t feel like a recruiting call. Instead, it should feel like the first step in building a relationship between two colleagues. 
• You will need a talent pipeline / evergreen approach – because the selling of any top manager/candidate will take some time. You may need to draw out your normal candidate attraction approach so that it extends over several months. This “talent pipeline” approach gives you more time to sell and build a trusting relationship with your manager candidates. Another necessary feature will be your ability to offer them a job the minute they are ready to move. So, the best way to do this is to establish several evergreen job slots that continually remain open without needing a new requisition.
• Ask your current managers for input into your recruiting process – managers are different for most recruits. So, your recruiting will be much more effective if you get your current manager’s help with the hiring process. Start by asking them to help you identify the current key attraction factors that get the attention of effective managers. Also, ask them to help you identify the best places to get your recruiting materials and open jobs in front of your targeted managers. Finally, you should continually build a talent map of the best execution managers in your industry. Then, you must encourage your employees, recruiters, and managers to use it over time to build a trusting relationship with desirable candidates. 
• Track the program’s impacts with metrics – if you expect to earn the continued support of your most cynical executives. It’s important that you set up performance metrics for your manager hiring program so that you can prove that your externally hired managers fit into your culture. And they have completed their projects faster and under budget at a higher rate than your current managers.
• You must anticipate some problems – you must expect some level of program resistance from your HR leaders (because they have a strong bias for hiring 100% internally). You should expect many existing managers to resist because opening management jobs to external candidates may limit their opportunities. Some will actually fear the competition from these external new hires. 

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If you only do one thing – announce to your employees that you’re setting up an employee referral subprogram. Specifically targeting the referring of effective managers. Tell your employees the goal of this referral segment is to guarantee continuous company growth because there will be sufficient managers to oversee every growth area. Then, use that response rate from this pilot to gauge how much employee and manager support you can expect if you roll out the process across the corporation.

Final Thoughts

It’s hard to argue against the premise that strategic project completion is a primary contributor to overall corporate success. However, when you identify the reasons why strategic projects are not completed on time and under budget. You may find that up to 70% of the underlying causes for strategic project delays/failures are directly impacted by a team manager’s actions (or the inactions). So, failing and delayed projects have a tremendous negative dollar impact on business results.

In my view, as more “one-and-done projects” become the organizational norm. It’s becoming essential that Talent Acquisition leaders institute a new focus on hiring effective managers. To be blunt, most current recruiting processes don’t target managers. They can’t because they are simply not designed to effectively attract and land these much more difficult-to-hire candidates. And, of course, a secondary goal should be for HR to simultaneously focus on fixing or replacing each of the organization’s weak managers, who can now be replaced by more effective newly hired managers.

Note for the reader

This is the latest invite from Dr. John Sullivan, who was labeled “the Michael Jordan of Hiring” by Fast Company Magazine.
Please help to spread his ideas by sharing this with your team/network and by posting it on your favorite social media.