Managing Valences. How CEOs can Match Motives and Roles in Top Hires, Promotions, and Executive Team Reorganizations

Transcription

1 Managing Valences How CEOs can Match Motives and Roles in Top Hires, Promotions, and Executive Team Reorganizations It happens in all organizations: That top executive hire, newly promoted high-potential, or reorganized executive team inexplicably underperforms, even though you did your due diligence carefully considering the knowledge, experience, and competencies of candidates. But what you probably didn t consider is valence the strength of the connection between an individual s deepest motives and the highly specific activities required in a role. It s the key to what is really going on in many cases of individual and team underperformance and you can not only understand it, you can manage it. The best athlete who stumbles: After an exhaustive search, the organization recruits the best athlete for a critical role. The new executive has never filled that particular role before but has an outstanding record of achievements, comes highly recommended, and gives every indication of becoming a valuable contributor. Nevertheless, after six months or so and despite a comprehensive onboarding program, the executive is underperforming. He appears to be less than fully engaged in many aspects of the role; he avoids addressing certain kinds of issues; his peers on the executive team and his subordinates work around him in order to accomplish necessary tasks. It s not that he s out of his depth HR and the recruiters were right to identify him as a best athlete it s that he never really dives in. The promotion that doesn t fulfill the promise: A high-potential executive is promoted to a bigger job in her function, rotated to a developmental role, or promoted to a major role outside her function. As with the best athlete who stumbles, the reality of her performance doesn t live up to the promise she has exhibited throughout her tenure with the organization. There is something suboptimal in the way she handles some of the responsibilities of her new job. But it s not a matter of expertise or knowledge she s a fast learner, she has sterling educational credentials, and she has great expertise in many areas of the business. Like the best athlete, she s not a disaster just somewhat disappointing and the organization makes do with this suboptimal situation. The reorganization that disorganizes: In a restructuring, a reorganization, or after an acquisition, people are shifted into new roles and responsibilities. The dust settles, a reasonable amount of time passes, and still the new team or teams that have emerged don t quite jell. The reshuffling fails to achieve some of its goals in key areas. People who have excelled in their former roles unaccountably underperform. And the more people who have been moved into new roles, the odds increase that there will be more such underperformers multiplying the problems. These all too familiar cases of underperformance create a great dilemma for CEOs and heads of HR. Do you admit your mistake and move such underperformers to yet different roles? Put them back in their previous roles? Transition them out? Reorganize the reorganization? None of those alternatives is particularly appealing. Sidelining, shedding, or continually moving otherwise competent executives are great wastes of human resources and organizational energy. 1

2 It would be far better to find a way to avoid those situations whenever possible and remedy them quickly when they do occur, with the least waste of executive potential. That of course is what many organizations take themselves to be doing when they consider someone s fit with a role. Too often, however, fit is construed to mean a checklist of abilities and experiences that seem relevant to a role or culture. And if there are gaps like knowledge of a key market, for example then it is rightly assumed that a good executive can acquire that knowledge. If a particular skill is lacking, the hole can be filled through training on the job. In any case, all the bases seem to have been covered. But what is missing is a deep understanding of how strongly an individual s deepest motives connect with the activities in a particular role. Psychologists call these connections valences the positive or negative orientation, acquired very early in life, toward certain kinds of tasks and activities. Similarly, in chemistry, valence describes the The failure to understand someone s capacity of atoms to bond with each other. In judging movies, we deepest motives and the valences of those call on psychology and the periodic table when we talk about the motives that is, the strength of their degree of chemistry between two stars. connection or overlap to a role s activities Lack of this overlap will also increase the anxiety the individual can lead to mismatches of individuals experiences in such a role. To avoid or repair such otherwise with appropriate roles, which result inexplicable mismatches, you must uncover the individual s in lower productivity, morale, and deepest motives, determine their valence with the relevant activities of a role, and understand how to manage those valences effectiveness for the individual, the team, for the greatest good of the individual and the organization. and the organization. Motives: Getting to the Bottom of Executive Behavior Motives are among the most deeply rooted determinants of human behavior. As the emotional drives that predict patterns of an individual s behavior over time, understanding them is a key element in assessing executive potential for the long term, defined as the capacity to take on leadership roles that are greater in both size and complexity, and the speed with which someone can do so. But understanding motives is equally important in the short term when bringing or moving someone into a new role, when a role changes, or a team is reorganized. Because motives are established early in life and are perhaps to some extent innate, they are difficult to change. They are also difficult to articulate and should not be confused with what we say our motives are. Explicit, selfattributed motivations are values. Values speak to what we believe (and often consciously act on). Motives speak to what we like, enjoy, and get energized by. They are often at the bottom of things we do that we don t understand. And they are often behind the things we think about when we don t have to think about anything. Many possible motives have been identified to drive people in social settings such as companies and other organizations. (Further research can be found in the pioneering work of academics such as David McClelland and Robert Hogan.) These motives can be generally grouped into overarching categories: the desire for achievement or that of mastering a task, the desire for affiliation or that of working with others, and the desire for power or influencing others. Another perspective from which to view motives is to consider the motivating influences of the what, who, and how of a job that is, the impact of being motivated by what the work includes, or by who the person works with, or by how the work will be accomplished. These motivators differ sharply from each other both in their essences and in their implications for individuals in whom one or another of these motives is dominant: 2

3 For instance, people who experience achievement or the drive to master a task and get ahead as their highest motive are energized by meeting and beating goals, personally improving the way things are done, and doing and learning new things. Their watchwords are efficiency and innovation, and their job satisfaction is not dependent upon engaging with other people. In fact, because they want to experience success for themselves, they often find working through others frustrating. As a result, they may dominate others and micromanage processes. On the other hand, their relentless drive to succeed can lead to extraordinary accomplishments. The motivator of what the work entails can be closely associated with the motive of achievement or getting ahead. Contrast that, if you will, with the motivations of an individual who is most strongly influenced by getting along with others and working closely with others someone driven by the who of a job. For this person individual, it is not about networking or professional affiliations, though such people may join many professional groups. People driven by this desire for affiliation are energized by getting along with people, engaging socially, and maintaining good personal relationships. Conversely, they worry about damaging relationships and may go to great lengths to avoid doing so. At the extreme, their tendency to seek the approval of others can hamper them as leaders, but that sensitivity can also make them highly supportive team members. Another cluster of motives centers on how a job is conducted, and even the ability to influence others during the process of the work. People motivated by the desire to influence are energized by having an impact on individuals, groups, or the world at large. They enjoy the process of persuading others to change an attitude, adopt a particular course of conduct, or pursue a desirable line of action. Coaches, mentors, and many great leaders are driven by this motive and, at the extreme, so are master manipulators. Every individual is driven by a basket of motivators and naturally, some of those motives impact the individual more than others. Naturally, someone whose dominant motive is achievement will behave differently from someone whose strongest desire is affiliating with others or the ability to influence. Because motives are so hard to change it is essential to identify them when considering a candidate for a role. While it is not impossible to change motives or to manage around them, all other things being equal, it is far more efficient to put someone in a role whose motives have a strong positive valence with the activities required in the role. But first you must understand precisely what those activities are. Roles: Understanding Relevant Activities The activities of a role consist of what the incumbent in a particular organization actually does. Activities should not be confused with leadership competencies, which include capabilities such as strategic thought, change leadership, market knowledge, and customer orientation. Different roles do require greater strength in some competencies than others an effective head of sales, for example, would be unlikely to lack competency in market knowledge or customer orientation. And outstanding CEOs, we have found, generate high scores in a broad range of competencies. Nevertheless, the same role in different organizations, while requiring the same leadership competencies, may entail quite different activities. The head of sales for a product company, for example, might spend a great deal of time seeking and incenting salespeople who can do a high volume of deals and work on developing new sales channels. The head of sales for a services company might spend time seeing that salespeople are painstakingly trained in the much slower process of consultative selling. This sales head might also spend far more time concentrating on account service both before, during, and after a sale in order to secure follow-on business in the future. He or she might also need to develop systems to measure customer satisfaction accurately and to project lifetime customer value. 3

4 The critical activities that go with product sales are more likely to be embraced by someone who is energized by achievement by mastering, by winning, by making the numbers, and by seeing performance reflected in rewards clearly calibrated for degrees of success. The activities that surround the selling of services are more likely to be embraced by someone who derives great pleasure from influencing others building long-term relationships with key accounts, training and mentoring consultative salespeople, and bringing big accounts around to the c ompany s way of seeing the world. Reverse the roles of these two sales heads, however, and you might find them underperforming half-heartedly doing things they find distasteful, or avoiding those things altogether. The achievement-driven sales head thrust into the services world lacks the patience to maintain relationships with customers after pieces of business has been sold, seeing such activities as an inefficient use of time. Or he keeps putting off those trips to visit key customers and, in spite of company strategy, he pushes his people to make sales faster, though such tactics alienate potential services customers. Meanwhile, the influence-driven sales head finds herself trapped in a relentless push for higher sales that has little to do with persuasion or making an impact on a key customer the kinds of activities that really energize her and bring out her best. Those kinds of mismatches often occur when a company changes its strategy or moves into a new phase in the execution of a long-term strategy. A products company, seeing its products becoming commoditized, may decide to move into services. A traditional pharmaceutical manufacturer, facing patent expirations and an empty pipeline of new drugs, may decide to grow by acquiring biotech companies. An enterprise software maker decides to move its business to the cloud. As the strategy changes for such companies, the activities required in certain roles may also change. As a result, someone who has been performing well in a role for years can suddenly become a fish out of water, struggling with unfamiliar and unappealing activities. Dramatic changes of strategy can also create multiple mismatches of individuals and roles. An enterprise software company s move from selling physical disks to offering software as a service in the cloud can change the critical activities of multiple roles: Chief Technology Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Head of Sales, Head of Product Development, and others. Each of these changes in activities carries with it the potential for a mismatch with the deepest motives of the incumbent. Similar risks of multiple mismatches also occur when a CEO reorganizes or restructures the Senior Management Team, or during post-merger integration following an acquisition. With multiple mismatches, the problem grows geometrically. It s no longer a question of the underperformance of an individual, but an issue of two or more underperformers, a situation that can undermine the effectiveness of an entire executive team. In fact, in some instances, even one mismatch, if it occurs in a significant role, can adversely affect team effectiveness and increase the overall anxiety of the group. In all of these instances filling a single role, changing strategy, restructuring an executive team, or merging two organizations it is therefore essential to develop an understanding not only of the required leadership competencies, but of the required critical activities in a role at any given time, so as to match the right individual valence to the role. Many organizations, when filling a role, develop a job profile that lists the activities that go with the territory. Such a list for the head of business development in a fragmented industry ripe for consolidation might include: executive will find appropriate acquisition opportunities among regional, family-owned businesses and convert at least three of those opportunities in the first year in the role. While that profile does name the activity and even sets a standard of performance, it fails to dig deeply into associated activities in a way that would enable a connection with motives activities like dealing with the pride, sensitivity, and emotional complications that go with family owned businesses. That is a qualitatively different activity from dealing with venture capital or PE-backed businesses that have been planning their exit strategies from the outset. Sitting across the table from family members who lovingly built a business that bears their name is something else. 4

5 The absence of such detailed understanding of role activities, even if you possess a firm grasp of an individual s motives, has three adverse consequences. First, job profiles remain highly general, concealing more than they reveal about what a particular role at a particular time really entails. Second, there is nothing to which valences can be connected, making assessment impossible. Third, valences that cannot be assessed cannot be managed, likely leaving the organization to face recurring and seemingly inexplicable underperformance by some individuals as well as teams. Valences: Managing the Risk of Motive/Activities Misalignment As the discussion of activities suggests, assessment is ultimately situational. Although motives may be relatively stable, role activities can change over time, sometimes quite suddenly, as in the case of acquisitions or reorganizations. It is essential, therefore, in filling any role or developing someone already in a role to understand the deepest motives of the individual and the relative strength of the connection between those motives their valences and the critical activities of a role at any given time. An experienced and knowledgeable interviewer will not only uncover deep drives but also be able to determine the strength of their connection to precise activities, not just the generalities of a role. This situational assessment of motives/ valences/activities is accomplished, in parallel with competency assessment, through probing interviews, 360-degree evaluation, innovative referencing, and other tools designed to evaluate the potential of the executive. For getting at motives the deepest level of potential skillful behavioral interviewing is essential. In our experience, weak valence link between primary motives and specific activities accounts for far more of the costliest mismatches of individuals with roles than do lack of industry or role experience. If someone is struggling in a role because of lack of knowledge or lack of experience with certain activities, the problem can be addressed fairly easily and quickly through training and on-the-job learning. But if the root of the struggle lies at the much deeper level of motives, indifference, or even an aversion to the critical activities of the role, and the organization is unaware of it, then operating problems are likely to multiply, underperformance to persist, and financial and human costs to rise. To mitigate those risks, the organization must recognize the fundamental role of valences in executive and team performance and manage them. Specifically, you can: Make sure the assessment of valences is integrated into all executive evaluation. Whenever possible whether you re promoting someone, hiring from outside, or reorganizing a team don t stop at experience, knowledge, and skills. Access a far more accurate predictor of success the way in which someone s deepest drives connect with the specific activities of a role. While this may require the help of specialists, it s certainly worth the modest investment in terms of avoiding the costs of the poor performance that result from deep-seated mismatches. Further, the assessment of valences provides a powerful means for choosing between candidates who otherwise seem equally qualified. Most positively, putting someone in a role who is not only well-qualified, but also whose deepest drives and enthusiasms are engaged by the role s activities, is the surest formula for top performance. Fill a role with someone who has succeeded in other roles involving similar activities. You may not always have the opportunity to assess valences adequately perhaps a role must be filled immediately; or executives from an acquisition are coming on board; or the resources and skills to do the 5

6 assessment are unavailable. In such cases, think carefully about the specific activities not the job title or the high-level job profile involved in the role you are trying to fill. Then consider hiring someone who has successfully engaged in those activities before, whether in a different position or several positions or in a different industry. Where possible, address weak valences overlap between an individual s motives and critical activities of a role. In some situations in which valences overlap with critical activities are weak, it is possible to address the problem without having to resort to removing an incumbent or rule out a potentially valuable candidate for a role. While motives are deep-seated and difficult to change, people can be made aware of their motives and of any weak valences with critical activities. If the valence is only weak rather than overwhelmingly negative, then mentorship programs and executive coaching can help the executive learn compensatory behaviors. In cases where there is only a single activity at issue and the executive is otherwise extremely v aluable, you can simply move the activity into someone else s domain or ensure that one of the executive s direct reports can satisfactorily perform the task. Begin internally with an evaluation of team effectiveness that includes the assessment of valences. Rather than waiting until the next executive opening to take advantage of the power of understanding valences, begin by proactively assessing your team. Evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of a team in relation to corporate strategy and goals allows the team to set a course toward improved performance. Newly assembled teams have the opportunity to step off in the right direction, aiming toward success as defined by those corporate goals. Mutual respect and effective patterns for collaboration can be built by teams that are recently merged. And most importantly, all teams can identify their shortcomings as well as areas of superior performance, as no productive move forward can begin without this vital information. To accomplish these goals, the review requires a firm foundation an understanding of each team member s motives and their valences with critical role and team activities. When my colleagues and I conduct team assessments for Diversified Search, the process includes productive and probing interviews with all team members. These interviews enable us to uncover motives and assess their valences with each executive s critical activities, both in that individual s role and as a member of the team. The assessment also provides a path forward to optimize individual and team performance. Similarly, when engaged in traditional executive search work or a succession planning assignment, valences still come to the fore. Diversified Search has a distinguished reputation for creating Alignment before Action at the onset of a succession planning mandate, and then proceeding with our firm s thorough five-step process. Establishing valences can be integral to this process. The benefits to individuals, leaders, and organizations of managing valences are manifold. By understanding the strength of the connection between motives and role activities, you can: Make sure you have the right people in the right roles Reliably choose between two candidates who otherwise appear to be equal in experience and competence Uncover weak valences overlap and manage the gap Put talent development on a firmer footing Greatly enhance succession planning 6

7 Establish a firm basis on which to build team effectiveness Continually re-evaluate the fit of executives with their roles as the organization s objectives or values evolve over time These benefits aren t obtained in isolation, but in the wider contexts of talent management, management appraisal, and assessment of team effectiveness. At the deepest level of those wider activities lies the mechanism for ensuring their success: the understanding of how strongly engaged people are by the elements of what they are expected to do. 7