Dave Kearns

I am not sure at what age the obit page becomes a section that you check every day, but as I was going through the NY Times today I realized that whatever that age is, I was there.

I also realized that when I read of the passing of David T. Kearns, former CEO at Xerox that aside from the respect I had for him when I worked at Xerox, I was reminded that some of the passion I feel around the need to fix our public education system (e.g. Trickle Down Education) came from Dave. The connectiion was something I had not thought about for a long time.

I also thought that if I were to do a word cloud analysis of the topics in these postings over the past five or six years, words/phrases like "education", "business leadership", "executive leadership" and "value systems" would show up a lot, and in reading Tom Zeller, Jr's article on Dave my memory was refreshed again as to why.

Now for sure Dave Kearns was not the only factor in how or why I came to be so concerned about the challenges we face on the education front. 

Certainly my parents played a big part (my father was a teacher and  research scientist while my mother a voracious reader).  In addition, I was lucky enough to have attended Hopkins School in New Haven at a time when someone with my suspect commitment to study could still get in and it was not until I was well into trying to earn a living that I came to realize just how important those years we in saving my "educational" and hence my "economic" life, but I digress. 

In 1971, the only thing Dave Kearns and I had in common was that we both came to Xerox in the same year.  Of course, he was bringing with him a very successful track record from IBM and I barely had a record, much less a successful one.

In 1977 Dave Kearns was the COO and he became the CEO in 1982 and for anyone familiar with Xerox history over the years, to say that Xerox was in trouble would be an understatement.  The Japanese were eating our lunch big time or as Kearns said at the time in a Times interview: "We are in the proverbial soup."

To this day, I vividly recall Kearns' quote when he became the CEO and was asked how he would like his tenure to be remembered in years to come and he said "...as the one who beat the Japanese."

Easy to say, but very hard to do as this was back in the day when Japan was leading the world in product design and manufacturing efficiency and quality.  Heck, it was Edward Deming who showed them how, but back in USA we were too lazy to make the effort.

Dave Kearns did lead Xerox back from the brink, and as Zeller points out in the article, one of the key things was that Kearns saw "...the Japanese approaches to both business and education as models for American reforms."

For someone to keeping pushing for what they think is important takes an enormous amount of passion and energy.  Dave Kearns had both as I had the chance to learn personally when I was at corporate headquarters for much of the same time Dave was there.  I saw that energy and heard the passion on many occasions as we often ran side by side on treadmills in the fitness center in the morning.

Now I don't know if Dave's passion regarding education came out of that his experience during that time or not, I never thought to ask him, but whatever it was, it stayed with him long after he left Xerox and this is well detailed in the Times article.  He stuck with it for more than 20 years including during the years when he was fighting sinus cancer which is what finally brought his life to an end.

Leaders like David Kearns don't come along all that often.  It was a privilege to have known him.

Global War for Talent

As this written, I no longer remember where I stumbled across the info that came out of a 2008 study by The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and which placed the United States 18th among the 36 nations examined.

While I know 2008 seems like ancient history and in Twitter years probably qualifies as prehistoric, but even way back then there were folks concerned about where America stood from an educational perspective.

Indeed, even with data this old, if you were looking for a way to get back on your diet by losing your appetite in a hurry, you can read the entire article here.

I am guessing that most of us would have a tendency to say, that if the sky hasn't fallen by now, it's time to worry about something else like trying to figure out if the Eagles trade of McNabb to the Redskins was a good one, and if so for which team. (As a Giants fan, I'm worried about both.)

If you read some of the think pieces about our country's prospects for the future as a global player most don't exactly make you want to run out and bet the ranch on our educational system as the answer.

Certainly I realize that many of the articles that look at this stuff as very much half empty are done to, as they say, "sell papers" but the fact remains that even if things are not as dismal as they project, to say that we do not face major challenges is a huge understatement.

When one reads articles on how to fix all this, the Rx always seems to say we need to develop more collaboration between parents, teachers and school administrations. Rarely, or at least not often enough, there is little talk about the role that business leaders should play.

Sure there is a fair amount of financial support for scholarships, but in a sense it feels to me that by the time those are awarded, we have already lost hundreds of thousands of kids with equal or better potential because they have been destroyed by the system before they even had the chance to compete.

As to putting cost of education out of reach for most middle class families, there is plenty of fodder there for books much less blogs.

If business leaders hope to compete effectively on a global basis, then they best think about putting some of that R&D money into helping to figure out how to save the intellectual capital that is going to waste.

H-1 visas are not an answer, they simply mask the disease.

Three Questions Executives Should Ask for the New Year

We're almost out of January, and a lot of the resolution stuff is wearing off so I am rushing to get this off my chest before it simply proves I am further behind the power curve than even I thought.

Question: Do you hate stuff that makes you think as much as I do? Okay, maybe hate is too strong a word, maybe feeling humiliated and embarrassed is more like it.

Well, I have to admit publically that when I read Melissa Raffone's blog post in the Conversation section of the online Harvard Business Review, I had one of those moments.

It's a great post, and it ends with posing three questions, the kind that make it hard to look in the mirror for most of us. That said, like most such questions, they are super insightful and well worth pondering in January or any other time. The kind of stuff that some of us would tape to the bathroom mirror even if it was hard to see each morning:

1. If there was only one thing I could do to improve my business, what would it be and how would I make it happen?

2. If there was only one thing I could focus on to improve my personal performance, what would that be and how would I make it happen?

3. What messages am I not listening to or refusing to confront in my business and personal performance and how am I going to overcome that this year?

As uncomfortable as it made me feel for not being able to come up with immediate answers (was I afraid to hear what I would say?) I was struck by how flexible these questions were in terms of both one's professional as well as personal lives, and it is in that spirit that I pass them along in case you might have missed the post.

A belated Happy New Year from those of us who are still trying to catch up with ourselves.

The Biggest Bang for the Buck

If one of your goals as a leader is to become a better communicator, there is no better time than now to do just that. Indeed, given the present economic envionment, if you are a leader there has never been a time where it is more important for you to communicate to those you lead.

As we all plan to spend the balance of 2009 moving beyond the recession and into some sort of recovery, the fact remains that the economy and its instability are top-of-mind for most employees. Therefore, it’s crucial to keep the lines of communication open as you navigate your company through these uncertain times. Employees are counting on you for that.

Consulting firm Watson Wyatt surveyed employers about communicating in this rough economic climate. Among the topics employers said they are addressing include company performance and solvency as well as job security — issues employees say are of the most interest to them. Hardly surprising.

How is this communication occurring? According to the survey, the most popular methods seem to be town hall meetings, staff meetings and face-to-face talks. Even email and company intranets are effective tools. Apparently the survey was done before Twitter came on the scene or it probably would have had that as a source as well.

Regardless of the channel, the good news is that the majority (62 percent) said they’re not going to stop. In truth, I was a bit disappointed and surprised that the percertage wasn't higher, but 62% is a good start and hopefully once times improve they will not go back to "business as usual" and allow the "grapevine" to communicate for them.

Why was I disappointed even with 62%? The answer is because if I was the head of HR and the boss came to me and said your budget for the year is $1.00 and you must pick only one item on which to spend it, I would tell him that I was going to spend it on communications with the staff. That's how important I think it is and here's why:

The real driver for productivity doesn't come from the application of technology. The technology is just the tool. The real difference maker is the committment level of the individuals in whose hands the tools are placed and my belief is that committment comes from the motivation that is bourne out of trust and good news or bad (especially bad) the enteprise that levels with its people - wins.

This is not to say that there aren't any number of other elements involved, of course there are, but if these are not bulit on a foundation of trust, long term the organization will find committment replaced by people who are simply going through the motions.

And before you say "Hey Dave, tell me something I don't know," explain to me why more companies don't do it? Maybe it's because as my mother used to say their leaders have the "morals of an alley cat?"

Treadmill Thoughts

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." H.L. Mencken

I suppose I am not unlike most other Americans in that I undoubtedly take the freedoms that I have pretty much for granted. Not that I'm proud of it, but when I look in the mirror I have to admit that it isn't something that I go to bed at night or wake up in the morning thinking about.

That said, as I was on the treadmill at the gym this morning and watching the news and listening to the commentary surrounding our latest poster children for ego driven greed (i.e. Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford) two thoughts kept surfacing in my mind and as they did, I kept getting madder, going faster and sweating more.

The first thought as I've already said was the anger I felt at listening yet once again to the how these two guys had betrayed the trust of others.

The second, however, was about how they had thrown away the opportunity that living in this country had given to them.

Maybe the second thought came because the 4th is this weekend when we are all reminded of just how fortunate we are to live in this country. It was this second thought that led me to the Mencken quote up top of this post.

Since I have spent my entire career in the business world, and most of that interacting with senior level business leaders, I have had my share of experience in dealing with the "scoundrels" on a personal level as well as reading and hearing about the all too many others (i.e. Ebbers, Lay et al.)

But as I was "cooling down" from my workout, and thinking about these SOBs and what they had elected to do with the freedom and opportunities that living here had given them, I thought to myself that as bad as they were and are, in terms of those who lead businesses in this country (both large and small) the over-whelming majority of them don't really need to be "regulated."

As I think the Mencken quote suggests, laws are written to try and protect the rest of us from the few who choose to use the freedom we enjoy to satisfy their own greed as opposed to using the opportunity they have been given to give back in a way that helps us to grow as a society and country.

Maybe all this sounds rediculously idealistic, however, I have certainly been around long enough to know that like it or not, we actually do need the laws and regs to protect us from the preditors. Caveat emptor hasn't been around as long as it has just because back in the day someone thought it was a clever phrase.

But even with all this "evil" surrounding us why am I optimistic? Because I really do believe that there are far more leaders out there (even lots whose first name might be Bernie or Ken) who lead their departments, divisions, SBUs and companies who have taken advantage of the freedoms we enjoy to lead in a way that make us proud to not just be part of their organization but proud as well to be a citizen of the greatest country on earth.

Enjoy your holiday.

When In Doubt

Given the "latest in the series" as they say (i.e. Madoff and Stanford) many of the talking heads both on and offline have dusted off all the stuff they wrote when they were writing about Ebbers, Lay, et al each of whom were desparately jocking for space in the papers, on blogs and the FBI's Most Wanted List.

I guess I probably should include the likes of Citi, BOA, Freddie Mac, etc. as part of "the list" too, but I think I am still too ticked off to deal with it. I am still at the "let's draw and quarter them" stage.

Anyway, every time I read or hear about this stuff, I just can't help wondering why such a simple and fundamental set of values seems to have been lost by so many of those who used to carry around the title of "leader."

I figured if everybody else was doing it, maybe I should dust of my "when in doubt" file and see what I had saved. What turned up was the following from Norman Augustine.

Here's what he had to say:

How can one decide what the ethically correct thing to do is? Answer the following questions:

1. Is it legal?

2. If someone else did "this to you," would you think it was fair?

3. Would you be content if this were to appear on the front page of your hometown newspaper?

4. Would you like your mother to see you do this?

I suppose that instead of this list he could have just said why not try the one that starts with "Do unto others..." but I guess he thought that one was already spoken for.

Anybody out there have any suggestions who we might send these guidelines to who might have missed the memo?

And The Winner Is...

So we were fortunate enough a few weeks ago to get icon Bill George who many may recognize as former Medtronic CEO, Harvard professor, and best-selling author, to serve as the judge in what we called The Bill George Challenge. I first mentioned something about it here in a post called: Semper Fi & The Challenge of Leadership

The Challenge was for members to tell Bill what they would have to change about their leadership style to adapt to a more participatory management practice. What role models would they reference? How would they measure the result to assess whether the effort to make such a change was worthwhile for themselves and their organization — would specific behaviors or aspects of the culture also change?

The responses from the membership were incredible, and while there can only be one winner (he gets to be Bill George's guest at HSM's World Business Forum) I am sure that we'll put together a collection of the responses to share.
For now, however, I wanted to thank our winner and former Healthcare CEO, Jay Jarrell, for giving us the okay to let the readers here gain from his thoughts on the subject. Here is what Jay had to say. Once read, it is easy to see why Bill George picked it.

Mr. George,

There is an old adage about having to step inside the shoes of another to understand that person's actions. I believe this understanding is the starting point for practicing participatory management. Asking questions, such as what would motivate me to participate or what would make me work harder, have always guided me in eliciting stronger participation from my staff and others. I have always found that it is my responsibility to create not only the environment for all to participate, but also, to have that occur.

From this beginning, it is a matter of having the generosity to reward success and share the financial success, the patience to listen and communicate, the good sense to encourage, the intelligent curiosity to probe and ask questions, the diligent work ethic to demonstrate personally the more routine daily actions of making sure all that I can make happen in an outstanding way does happen, and the character and integrity to reward.

I am constantly finding myself falling short of practicing what I preach. Believing in participatory management and its benefits is easy, as are having most of the characteristics I described above and practicing them. However, there are two characteristics that I find I typically over time short change.

I often don't take the time to personally reward, believing the receipt alone of previously agreed upon monetary or other awards is sufficient. Also, I find myself not making the effort each day to make the contacts to ensure all of the strategic steps of a certain goal are occurring as well as possible.

To correct the above, I have begun writing out each evening a daily plan for the next day to make sure I practice each of those steps.

President Obama has been inspiring whether you agree with him on all policies or not, and in these dire economic times, he will have to become even more so. I intend to take inspiration from him and try to communicate better a vision and hope for better times.

Measuring the benefit of practicing participatory management may be somewhat subjective, but I can see it clearly. Certainly, achieving your revenue and profitability goals or chosen other specific goals that are quantifiable are a great indication, but industry or even national or international economic crises, as we are now incurring, can prevent financial goals from occurring. I can see the benefit of having practiced good participatory management in the constant flow of ideas and suggestions on a daily basis.

If personnel at all levels down to the lowest are not comfortable in greeting me by my first name, if they are not comfortable being able to tell me their ideas or even just what is oing on at their level that day and how it can help achieve certain company goals, and if they are not completely knowledgeable of the company's goals and the problems the company is facing that month, then I have not achieved my goal.

Those cultural changes of all employees knowing what I know and enthusiastically participating in the achievement of company goals are measurement enough.

The philosophy I try to follow comes from playing and following sports. It's the team that wins or loses, not the individual. By including all employees in my circle, by empowering them with as much knowledge and information as possible, by communicating the company's goals, and then by offering significant rewards and recognition for their achievement, I've used as much leverage as I can bring. The more people a company has working together and intensely toward shared goals, the greater its chance for success.

Thank you for this opportunity.
Jay Jarrell

Congratulations Jay, enjoy the forum. New York in October is a great place to be.

Mike for President

When I say Mike for president I am not talking about Jordan. Actually I'm just expressing the thought that a lot of sports fans do when they are passing accolades along about one of their idols.

In this case however I am not talking sports, I am talking about America's ability to compete in the world economy - a game I think most of us would agree we cannot afford to lose and yet if you read Michael E. Porter's recent article in the October 30th issue of BusinessWeek it feels like a game which while it may not be out of reach (yet) it is one where we need to put some points on the board in a big way.

Porter is, as most know, one of the leading gurus on competitiveness. In this most recent piece called Why America Needs an Economic Strategy (talk about an understatement!) Porter lays out in words that even I could understand both the need and some proposed solutions.

I should say as an aside that it is really nice to see someone do more than just write about "the problem" (as if we didn't know!) but also take the time to try and show the reader a "way out." This is also one of the reasons that I am such a fan of Tom Friedman who often does the same thing.

Anyway, what caught my eye was not just the subject which I found of immediate interest, but after reading it, I was pleased to see that he too was pounding the drum on one of the subjects about which readers of this blog will recognize as one about which I have pretty strong feelings - read public education. Here's what Porter had to say on the subject:

"A final strategic failure is in many ways the most disconcerting. All Americans know that the public education system is a serious weakness. Fewer may realize that citizens retiring today are better educated than the young people entering the workforce. In the global economy, just being an American is no longer enough to guarantee a good job at a good wage. Without world-class education and skills, Americans must compete with workers in other countries for jobs that could be moved anywhere. Unless we significantly improve the performance of our public schools, there is no scenario in which many Americans will escape continued pressure on their standard of living. And legal and illegal immigration of low-skilled workers cannot help but make the problem worse for less-skilled Americans."

This is not to say that there are not other strategic failure factors that Porter brings to the reader's attention, but for sure this one is super critical.

Presidential elections remind me of the sort of hopeful feeling that many of us feel on New Year's eve. A new beginning and a chance to make move forward with a "clean slate." An over simplification to be sure, but it is still hard to not feel some of that even though we know that the issues that we there on the 31st don't go away on the 1st.

All that said, and since we by this time tomorrow we will have a new President elect, and since I am a bit of an idealist anyway, I hope that the president and members of both houses will have read this article and will take it to heart, especially the closing paragraph which says:

"The new Administration will have an historic opportunity to adopt a strategic approach to the U.S.'s economic future, something that would bring the parties together. America is at its best when it recognizes problems and accepts collective responsibility for dealing with them. All Americans should hope that the next President and Congress rise to the challenge."

Yeah, I know, but somewhere in the past I must have been related to Don Quixote.

The Best of Times - The Worst of Times

Be it in print or electronic, the events and the "spin" being put on the events of the past month or so are anything but uplifting.

Not that the news is good by any means or that for sure we are faced with challenges from one end of the business horizon to the other. All that is true, but there is also the concept of perspective, and I have to say that is one of the things that is nice about having a partner who may be our President and COO in terms of his day job, but he also brings to that role the under pinning’s of an economist.

I am talking about Mark Anderson who has indeed led all of us at ExecuNet through the best of times and worst of times for the past 15 years.

While it is a brief segment (under two minutes) I thought what Mark had to say when he appeared on Fox News last week might help to bring some perspective to the current goings on.

This isn't to say by any means that we are not all in for a rough go of it, I think everyone knows that by now, but even in recessions there are pockets of opportunity both for businesses and the individuals who lead them. Indeed, maybe even more so for the individuals, because when it comes to the need for leadership, there is no such thing as a recession.

The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue)

Is there anybody in the world of marketing who doesn't read Seth Godin's Blog? If there are, I haven't stumbled across them as yet.

One of the reasons I suspect he is so popular is that among other things he has the talent to communicate ideas in words of one syllable that those of us without MBAs can both understand and relate to. Always a plus.

I thought a particularly good example of how he does this was his recent posting called The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue). Why did I feel that way? Simple: it was short, easy to understand, and because it met the most important and universal criteria of all ~ I agreed with him.

The gist of Godin's message in the post has to do with having the patience to believe in your vision as you build your business. Hardly a revolutionary concept, but it did give me pause to think about how it is that a belief that began 20 years ago still remains the foundation upon which ExecuNet continues to build.

As I thought about it, I am not sure if the right word is patience or not. Some might say in our case it might be closer to obstinacy, but whatever it is, I know that at least in our case I am very glad that we have followed a path closer to the wonderful ads that back in the day John Houseman did for Smith Barney

Deciding Who Leads

With all the kudos that I have seen surrounding my colleague Joe McCool's book Deciding Who Leads, I keep having the feeling that in a few years I'll be one of those guys who walks around at cocktail parties when they are discussing books that made a difference in specific industry segments and telling my friends that "I knew Joe when..."

I was reminded of this feeling just a day or two ago when I saw an email from the managing director of a UK based search firm you simply said:

"This morning I read through some of the key passages in Deciding Who Leads! superb book - should be on every hiring manager's desk and every recruiter's desk and perhaps every MBA course syllabus!"

The Brits, as we all know are not exactly known for going overboard when it comes to suggesting that something has real merit, so even though I had seen other comments on the book, this one made me feel a good deal of pride yet once again.

Way to go Joe!

Hard Roads Ahead

Like many of you, some of what I read on the Op Ed pages of the NY Times I buy into and some I don't, but rarely do I find the columns uninteresting.

Indeed, whether I agree with what I am reading or not, the columns of people like Tom Friedman, Maureen Dowd, William Kristol, David Brooks and Bob Herbert all continually drive home to me the value of education.

The ability of these writers, not to mention thousands of others whose have been fortunate enough to gain an excellent education have been blessed with being able to refine the gift of communication in writing, and not just the ability to "communicate", but to do so in ways that are both very powerful and often equally as persuasive.

A recent piece by Herbert which he called Hard Roads Ahead really caught my attention because he was writing about a subject on which I have commented here on a number of occasions, and probably will again as I believe it is the most serious issue we face, and heaven only knows we don't lack for issues competing for the top spot, but my vote still goes to the state of public education.

In the article, Mr. Herbert quotes from a book by Robert Wise. The book is called "Raising the Grade: How High School Reform Can Save Our Youth and Our Nation." Wise said:

International comparisons rank the United States a stunningly unimpressive eighteenth for high school graduation rate, a lackluster ranking of fifteenth for high school reading assessments among 15-year olds in developed countries, and an embarrassing 25th for high school math.

The column goes on to point out, again using Wise as the source, that in 1995 the U.S. was second in the world (New Zealand was first) in the graduation rate from four year colleges, and even though as a country, we have increased our percentages, we now rank 15th because of how rapidly others in the world have progressed.

The results? One example pointed to was the fact that the CEO of AT&T, Randall Stephenson, has said that the company has had real problems trying to find enough skilled workers to handle 5,000 customer-service jobs that the company had promised to bring back from overseas.

In a prior life I spent five years working for a city as the Director of Labor Relations. At the time I was too young to realize what the heck I had gotten myself into, but it turned out to be a memorable experience and education on several levels to say the least.

When I left the public sector and returned to the corporate world, I took away two key "learnings." One was the importance of leadership, and the second was a belief that when it came to really solving many fundamental issues facing us all, that it would have to be business not government that would have to lead the way.

Given the track record of both of late, it doesn't feel like much of a choice, but to borrow once again from the column, I thought the last quote from Wise said it very powerfully indeed:

"The best economic stimulus package is a diploma."

New Rules - Old Rules - Our Rules

It is always nice to get a call from a major news network asking you to appear on one of their programs and to comment on a subject about which they apprently think you have some level of expertise. The one this past week however, turned into an unexpected and very interesting experience.

I should quickly add however that having to get there for a live interview at 7:00 in the morning which translated into getting up at 4:00 added nothing to enhance the experience, although it does give one much more respect for those folks like Matt, Merideth, et al who do it every day. Not something I would look forward to for sure.

Anyway, the program is called Money for Breakfast and the segment is what Fox calls The C-Suite Sit Down which is a regular feature on the show.

The unexpected experience came about when I discovered they have a particular question that they always use to close these interviews. They call it Three Rules. I had never heard of it before, but once they told me about it, it reminded me of the monologue that Bill Maher does at the end of his show each week and calls "New Rules as well what they do to close James Lipton's wonderful show Inside the Actors Studio when they ask each guest the same set of questions at the end like "what's your favorite word" etc.

Fox's variation on this theme is to ask the guest to share what they feel are three things that are really important to them when it comes to their business. I have to say, it gives you a funny feeling in your stomach when someone asks you something that important and you are limited in both time and number in terms of responding. The fact that it is on national television doesn't add much to your comfort level either.

Since all of this came up late in the day before the show, it gave me essentially the night before the interview to think about it, something which I can tell you is definitely not conducive to a good night's sleep, especially when you have to get up at 4:00 in the bargain.

The point of the exercise, of course, is to get their guests to share with the audience what at ExecuNet we sometimes characterize as "key learnings" in the hope that they might be of some help or interest to others.

I have no idea if what follows will or won't be of some help or interest to others, but I offer it in spirit of sharing; not the sharing of advice, but of one person's perspective. What I came up were not "rules" so much as they are beliefs:

1. Any relationship that we have, either inside or outside of our business, is based on TRUST.

2. An organization's culture should be about a feeling of working "WITH" not "FOR."

3. Everything that we say or do reflects on us all both individually and collectively.

If others have "three rules" of their own, I would love to see them and others probably would too.

If you wanted to see the entire interview you can click here. It runs around five minutes.

Deciding Who Leads: How Executive Recruiters Drive, Direct and Disrupt the Global Search for Leadership Talent

If this sounds like it ought to be the title of a book, it's because it is.

Ever since I had known that Joe McCool (a name that is known to almost anyone who follows the executive recruiting world) was going to write a book, I was wondering how I could say something about it here without it sounding too self-serving inasmuch as Joe is a Senior Contributing Editor with ExecuNet.

My worries were answered, as they often are by Robyn Greenspan our Editor-in-Chief who in our Executive Insider newsletter that was published today featured an interview that she did with Joe. In it, she does a far better job than I ever could in giving readers a 10,000 foot view of just a few of the subjects Joe covers in this first book on the executive search industry published since 1986. Here's what she had to say and Joe's responses:

Would I be featuring this book if the author, Joe McCool, was not a trusted colleague and friend? Absolutely, because executives who recruit will find it fascinating and insightful, and executives who work with recruiters to achieve their own career goals will be enlightened to learn the inside scoop. In this Q&A, Joe and I talk about how executives can use the messages in Deciding Who Leads: How Executive Recruiters Drive, Direct & Disrupt the Global Search for Leadership Talent [Davies-Black, 2008] to their advantage.

Robyn Greenspan (RG): Why should executives read this book? What will they learn about executive recruiting that will help their own career plans?

Joseph Daniel McCool (JDM): I believe it offers today's executives a lot of perspective about how their career plans might eventually marry with the organizational leadership agenda of a new employer. I think executives will come away from the book with a fresh view of the role so-called "executive headhunters" play in management recruiting and also about how the process is still plagued by dysfunction. I hope it also informs their own interactions with executive recruiters and offers some rationale for why they should enter the career courtship process with their eyes wide open and with the utmost discretion, since it usually only proves successful for one or maybe two of the dozens of executives who might be contacted during the course of any search assignment.

RG: What's the most significant change you discovered in the executive recruiting business in the period since John Byrne's book, The Headhunters, was published in 1986?

JDM: Actually, the thing I was most struck by was just how little has changed since Byrne's 1986 assessment of the executive recruiting business and the state of corporate management succession. Perceptions about executive recruiters haven't moved one iota since his book was published, although it is important to point out that the practice of executive search has really been institutionalized across corporate America. The bottom line is that many companies need to start getting smart about management succession and become better consumers of the executive search business. The status quo isn't serving the best interests of employer organizations or of executive job candidates, and Deciding Who Leads really identifies the kind of sophistication employers and executive candidates need to bring to the process.

RG: You make a strong case as to why on-boarding is essential for executive success in a new position. What should a newly hired executive do to get acclimated if their recruiter or new employer does not offer on-boarding assistance?

JDM: I think smart executives are insisting on some form of performance feedback relatively early on in their tenure in a new leadership role, so they'll have some actionable intelligence to plot a course correction if they got off on the wrong foot or failed to make a really positive first impression. The fact is that management churn costs companies a lot of money, and failure in a new role can have dire consequences for any executive from a career advancement point of view. Organizations need lifelong learners in key executive roles, and I believe today's best leaders are those who will be willing to learn from their new environment and learn how their performance is perceived within it.