Three Tips to Avoid Bad Executive Hires

Of course, nobody likes to terminate an executive. So here are my three tips for avoiding the problem from my book The Prodigal Executive.

Tip # 1 -- Hire Great in the First Place.

By screening potential employees for past behaviors and attitudes, you can dramatically reduce the costs of hiring bad people, and make your workplace more productive, happier, safer, and more profitable. Combine an efficient prescreening assessment with an effective pre-employment background check, and you can cut your risk by half or more.

Tip # 2--Hire and Promote for Job Fit.

A well-documented study, published in Harvard Business Review concludes that "Job Match" is by far the most reliable predictor of effectiveness on the job (Greenberg and Greenberg, "Job Matching for Better Sales Performance." Harvard Business Review, Volume 58, No. 5, Sept 1, 1980). The study considered many factors including the age, sex, race, education and experience of approximately 300,000 subjects. It evaluated their job performance and found no significant statistical differences, except in the area of "Job Match." The conclusion was this: "It's not experience that counts or college degrees or other accepted factors; success hinges on a fit with the job."

If success is determined by job fit, your challenge is to predict that fit. This requires that you measure thinking style, behavioral traits, and occupational interests, and that you do so in a cost-effective way. Assessments are an efficient way to predict job fit. With an assessment, an employer can assure that the people hired fit their new jobs; that the people promoted can succeed in the new position; that employees can identify a career path likely to work; and that newly opened jobs can be filled from within, with a high probability of success.

Tip # 3--Improve Managers and Keep Your Best People.

People quit people, they don’t quit jobs. Guess which people they are most likely to quit? Hint: Managers have the most significant impact on a worker’s daily activities, the mood of the work setting, and the reward structure on the job.

Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your managers, and improving their most critical skills, is a key component of keeping your best people. In this economy, budgets for training have been curtailed, making it difficult to find the money to improve management skills. Many companies are concerned about wasting money on training employees that will leave. As author, salesperson and speaker Zig Ziglar said, though, “If you think it’s expensive to train people and lose them, try not training them and keeping them!”

Unfortunately there will always be know-it-alls, bullies, prima donnas, and passive aggressors. But don’t tolerate them for one day. If they were exceptional once, then coach these prodigal executives to return to greatness.