“How do we get better at interviewing so we can know if a hire will work out?”

That was one of the big questions The Women’s Center asked me when we were preparing to begin the imPACT Leadership Academy with them.  

They were struggling with a key Director-level position – they’d been struggling to keep that position filled, having gone through 2 different hires in the past 2 years.

Even during our 6 months together they hired someone who left after a very short tenure.

At this point, many organizations double down on hiring:

Better Questions

Better Screening

Better Candidates

But that’s the wrong place to start – because making the right hire isn’t just about asking the right questions – it’s about making sure you need to hire at all.

What’s the human cost of turnover at the leadership level?

Most estimates agree that the financial cost of a leader turnover can often be 150% to 400% of their salary.  

But, that’s only a small part of the cost:

• People around the role start taking on additional tasks – sometimes things that aren’t even close to their skillsets
• For individual contributors, these additional tasks often lead to burnout and turnover
• The rest of the leadership team also takes on additional tasks leading to burnout at their level too
• Executive Directors and CEOs end of getting into the weeds and not their actual work
• The blame often shifts to the quality of applicants and not the system itself

I’ll walk through 3 strategies that can address this issue, but you should notice this:

2 out of 3 of those have nothing to do with actual hiring.

Strategy #1: Assess whether the system is set up correctly

In almost any organization, many people naturally take on other tasks and add things to their roles.

This is truly a natural part of every organization.  

The problem is that when they eventually leave – what’s left behind is a “Frankenstein” role that doesn’t neatly match the job title anymore.  

Add in the reality that over time, maybe the strategic direction and mission changes.

Eventually, you have a role that doesn’t fit in the system anymore.

So the first thing you need to do is ask yourself these questions:

1. Is there a clear direction/strategic vision of the future?
2. Are all the current roles/duties clearly defined across the leadership team?
3. Do all the tasks/duties serve to move the programs/services/missions forward?

Eagle-eyed readers will see that this is the beginning of a potential re-organization.  

The good news is that you may not have to reorganize the entire system.  

But even spending a little time with open eyes can help you restructure how tasks are distributed and whether you even need to replace that position in the first place.

Strategy #2: Assess your current leadership team

Maybe you have the right structure and systems in place.  

Are your leaders functioning at their best?

Do they:

• Delegate work appropriately?
• Give feedback and manage workflows?
• Hold the folks below them accountable for results and work?

OR

Are they taking on the work their direct reports should be doing and thus are too overloaded to help take on extra tasks?

This is the situation The Women’s Center ended up realizing they needed to fix.

After our modules on managing employees and delegation, their 3 remaining Directors came to an important insight. 

By appropriately delegating out their work and focusing on higher level work they found they actually already had the capacity to split up the tasks of the 4th role.

It was a true win-win-win:

• Staff already liked them so they already had credibility and trust
• They didn’t have to hire someone who potentially added to more turnover and chaos
• They also didn’t feel over-burdened with more tasks because they were starting to function at a high level – both individually and as a team

Strategy #3: Hire smarter

There are times when hiring really IS the right answer.  

And the reality is so many times, people still default to outdated ways of asking questions (hypotheticals) or assess the wrong things.

There are lots of guides out there about this (in fact, if you want them, reply back and I’ll send you some resources that are out there about this).  

They all boil down to this:

• Learn how to ask behavioral interviewing questions – past performance is a great predictor of future performance
• Identify the values and culture of the team that are non-negotiable and what they look like – then ask behavioral interviewing and open-ended questions to see if the candidate’s values align with yours
• Remember that skills can be learned, but personality and both culture-fit/culture-add can strengthen your team

The Real Lesson

At the end of the day, it worked out for The Women’s Center.  

But only because they were willing to also take ask themselves the hard question:

Is this solely a hiring problem?

Just like many accidental leaders – it wasn’t that they were hiring the wrong person.  

Reality is – the system wasn’t setting anyone up to succeed.

And hiring someone won’t fix the problems, it only delays them.

Something here strike a chord with you?  Email me to let me know, I’m always interested to see what others are experiencing!

Cheers,

Chris

PS – Here are some additional resources for you:

1. Want to read the whole case study of how the imPACT Leadership Academy helped The Women’s Center?  Download it here: https://www.tinyurl.com/twccase
2. Want to hear about the power of Coaching vs. Training? I was on the Learning for Good podcast to talk about the value of executive coaching in developing leaders.  You can listen to it here or read it here.