What is a "Pilot Hole" Hire?

A Fable: A growing family-managed firm had reached the point where it needed to hire its first non-family executive for a newly created role. Up to this time, family members had been able to share the many hats needed to run the business. After a diligent search and assessment, the new manager comes on board--excited about the prospects of bringing innovative ideas to the company. Within six months the executive is let go--the victim of another “pilot hole” hire.

The Relationship Between a Pilot Hole and Executive Hiring

A pilot hole serves as a guide. Drilling a pilot hole before using a screw or nail to join parts together makes for a tighter fit and prevents the wood, drywall or plaster from splitting. A pilot hole paves the way for transition.

The pilot hole analogy can be applied to executive search and management. Sometimes the first person entering a new job ends up being used to pave the way for an easier transition for this individual’s successor. Often, the problem isn’t entirely with the pilot hole hire.

Adjusting to Change

When a new function is introduced to an organization, the new executive hired to lead has a tough transition to make. Previously, the duties assigned will have been collected from among several people, who may feel that losing their newly transferred duties is not so much of a relief as it is a loss of power and status. Managers used to calling their own shots may resent the arrival of the new executive. As new rules, procedures and controls are introduced, managers can feel they have lost prerogatives.

Meanwhile, the new hire must adjust to an established setting, where there is ample opportunity for the “new kid on the block” to misread cues and traditions.

When inevitable chemistry, personality or philosophical differences come to light, people can begin to talk about the new team member as “not fitting in” and may start exhibiting behavior that undermines the new executive—often criticizing style rather than substance.

Same Hole. Different Person.

Most people are hired precisely because they are different and bring something new. But in newly created roles, it is all too common that the new pro turns out to be a short- term hire.

Ironically, the next person brought into the role often shares the same credentials and interpersonal style as did the predecessor; but is accepted into the organization much more easily because of the “pilot hole” drilled by the pioneer who paved the way.

Why the turnover? Part of the issue is that staff often want to keep things as they were. Meanwhile, the new hire takes to heart the boss’ phrase “we want you to make an impact” when given marching orders. Energetically, the new professional does a cannonball dive into what appeared to be a calm pool. The resulting impact on the rest of the people can be unsettling as the new hire makes a big splash within the organization.

Avoiding a Split

Is a “pilot hole hire” inevitable? Assuming the right person was hired during the executive search process, there are ways to help avoid troubles during the transition of this new hire into a new role. Here are some tips:

1. Make certain everyone on the management team is on the same page regarding goals, expectations and support of the new hire.

2. Provide solid orientation and make it a two-way process. In addition to orienting the new hire to the organization and its workforce, provide activities that help current staff to adjust to the new person in this new role.

3. The new executive should solicit counsel on how best to prepare to “enter the water” in order to build successful common alliances.

A wise entry plan can assure a solid and lasting fit.

Be Irrational When Choosing a Leader

Choosing the right person to lead typically receives careful attention, assessment and analysis; and for good reasons. Yet, if we become too logical in selecting leaders we risk ignoring the Achilles Heel of hiring...a counterproductive vulnerable spot in the leadership staffing process.  

Classic logical/left brain executive selection methods are organized around examining a prospect's key credentials, employing a presumably rational hiring process. If hiring parties apply such presumably objective approaches to their selection processes, how will an irrational approach positively contribute to better decision making?

Credentials and career history far too often turn out to be inadequate predictors of future successful performance on the job. Granted, this rational (but often unreliable) data offers the benefit of sorting a field of candidates down to a manageable number to interview, but once that pool of possibilities is assembled the left-brained/logical part of the process should end.

Getting Personal

Personal interviews allow the principal hiring characteristics--the irrational factors--to be assessed. While the right brained interviewing stage brings the principal credentials based selection criteria into play, there are interpersonal decisions that are made irrationally...and appropriately so.

Classic interview formats permit the hiring parties to determine whether the candidates share the organization's values; demonstrate a communications style compatible with the organization's stakeholders; have sufficient "E.Q."(Emotional Intelligence)and an adequate I.Q. to match the environment's demands.

But there is a danger that accompanies these intuited yardstick filters. The peril lies in the impact that any subtly misleading prejudices you hold may skew your assessment decisions. It is fundamentally sound to guard against both positive biases ("halo effect", "just like us") and negative ones ("not our kind", or here fill in the blanks with all of the foolish discriminations now addressed by legislation, as well as those carried in your own personal "baggage"). Underlying assumptions of the interviewers may be just as far off base as are some of their rational criteria.

Choosing Wisely

While the interview process inevitably carries some element of thinking irrationally, if you are conscious in freeing your judgment from the constraints of your prejudices you will judge well. As a spirited, freely irrational screener you no doubt will identify the spark in a person that suggests that you are likely to advance a successful future relationship, applying your best gifts to reading and relating to others.

On the other hand, if you self-handicap your assessment judgment, whether with irrelevant rational criteria or with intuited prejudices you invariably will fail to judge wisely.

We are accustomed to relying on rational approaches to our decision making. Acquiring or amplifying our native gifts for irrationality serves us well. When we become irrational in selecting leaders we improve our odds of success in choosing leaders.

"To want to tackle everything rationally is very irrational."  Ilyas Kassam

A Lesson on Hiring from a Samurai Warrior

On the last day of a business practices exchange mission to China and Japan, I came across a small book:The Real Art of Japanese Management. After three weeks of comparing Oriental and American management methods, I was amused to be buying this book on the way home, rather than before embarking on the adventure.

When reading it while flying over the Pacific I discovered I had bought the book by its subtitle. The actual book title is: The Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy. The author: Miyamoto Musashi, the renowned swordsman and teacher of martial arts. The year the book was published: 1643. By the time we set down in Los Angeles, it was clear to me that our hosts in Japan had all been applying the lessons of the Bushido in the course of our sessions with them.

Although four centuries separate Musashi from today’s world of management, the samurai warrior’s insights and advice remain current. In fact, I keep this book on my desk, picking it up at spare moments, reading a page or so at a time. The lessons I learn remain fresh with each reading. 

Let’s examine one particular quote from Musashi’s book:

“When we look at the world, we see various arts offered for sale. Men think of themselves as commodities for sale. There is a trend for men to invent various tools and to sell those rather than their faculties. This thinking is like separating the seed from a flower and valuing the seed less than the flower….This way of thinking (also) causes them to color their technique and ‘show it off’.”

How might this lesson apply today regarding executive search and selection?

There is ample evidence of executives who see themselves as a commodity for sale, more highly valuing their credentials and work experiences than they do their unique faculties…valuing their tools more than their talents. These executives seek to “show off” their achievements and career history, despite the clear reality that this information provides only a little knowledge. Little do they know that there is great strength to be gained from examining their distinctive attributes and talents.

When executives sell their past work experiences as a commodity, they relegate themselves to being sized up against many others with similar backgrounds. This leaves them vulnerable to being cut out of a pool of candidates for the smallest of variances. As a result, selection and often compensation, is determined by the size of the pool, not by the significant individual differences of those in the pool.

Consider instead the wise executives who regularly reflect and examine their unique individual talents…those faculties that set them apart from the rest. They position themselves, not for their tools, but rather, for their exceptional human differences.

And how do you, the hiring executive, choose your management “warriors”? When moving through your executive selection process, do you give more weight to candidates with the flowering credentials or to those who articulate seeds of talent? Candidates possessing only a little self-knowledge may look good at first, but die on the vine when hired.