I don’t think we have ever conducted a search where we haven’t been asked to find an executive leader who can both build a strategy and be hands-on. Interviewing against this can be challenging as there are a number of variables that determine a person’s ability to execute, which range from skillset and experience to resourcing and expectations.
In an effort to help you make a successful executive hire that can be both strategic and execute for YOUR company, below outlines a few areas that warrant spending time on throughout the interview process:
- Defining “Hands-on”: Hands on is relative. In some organizations it means actually doing the job whereas in others, it means leading a team but being tied into key initiatives at an operating level. Ask your candidate what “hands-on” means to them. Listen to how they define it. Does their answer align with your business needs? Do your definitions of “hands-on” align? Don’t only be transparent about where your expectations are but dive deep to ensure the skill set is there to execute.
- Idea to execution: This ask will give you all the answers you need: “Walk me through a problem your company was facing, the idea you developed to solve it and how you were able to execute.” Make them dive deep into their answer by prompting with more questions; What did the team look like to get this done? Did they all report to you or were they dotted line? Did you use outside resources? What budget was developed to attack this? Where did you experience headwinds when trying to execute? What did you learn? If your candidate does not go deep, they did not do the execution.
- Org. design and planning: A top responsibility of every executive leader is to step-level growth and build a plan for scale. This requires tremendous thought inclusive of headcount, critical roles, hiring plan, and more. When hiring leadership, spend time learning about how your candidate approaches scaling a team, headcount planning, and critical hiring needs for success. Ask them what resources they will require to achieve the plan as well as what their number one hire looks like. Spending time here will help you understand your candidate’s dependencies ensuring you can give them the resources they need to execute.
The bottom line is, finding an executive who can both build the strategy and be hands-on is a tricky balance. Every company is different which is why we see executives succeed at some companies and fail at others. A past track record is only one indicator of future success. Diving deep into culture alignment, expectation setting, resource needs, self-assessment, and honest conversation is the only way to discover if your candidate will be successful in your environment.
