Q003
How do you Identify
the right candidates?
our take .
A mix of internal and external candidates facilitates the most fruitful discussions about what attributes, skills, and experiences make up the best candidate. While the individual certainly matters, there is no conclusive evidence on whether external or internal candidates outperform. Diversity in the process will produce options your initial description may not contemplate.
Knowing who might be on deck lets you make intentional investments well in advance of any formal changes. Specific to internal candidates, testing their abilities and also increasing accountability raises valuable feedback loops. If put in charge of something already in motion, what changes? If accountable for addressing an issue, how is conflict handled? Will others listen to them?
On external candidates, it’s worthwhile to keep a warm bench. Permanent Equity has The Orbit, which helps us gather people who are interested, eager, and talented, giving us reasons to call them up when we’re nearby, invite them to events, and “call a friend” when we’re working on something relevant to their background. All those touchpoints are opportunities to build rapport and trust ahead of consideration as an executive hire.
It’s also worth noting that we’ve had past success with CEO transitions involving both internal and external candidates at Permanent Equity. Not all external candidates have had industry-related backgrounds, either. An external hire is more likely to induce more significant change. Sometimes that’s what’s needed, and sometimes that represents unnecessary risk.
Most research suggests individual leaders’ soft skills are more consequential than their hard skills. To that end, we embrace multi-science assessments. What someone says, what their past self has done, and how they actually think and may act in the future are hard to reconcile, even in a series of interviews. In addition to DISC, we’ve worked with Michael Mueller on multiple executive searches to test for different types of risk tolerance, optimism, etc. It’s directionally useful to acknowledge the personality traits actively governing operations vs. what you may be opting for in a future candidate, and how radical that shift may be, good or bad, for the team and direction of the business.
on paper.
Character to consider: Augustus Caesar
Recognizing change
After witnessing the assassination of his uncle, Julius Caesar, and battling Marc Antony and the Roman Senate to retain control of the republic and take up the mantle of first emperor of Rome, Augustus thought, plotted, and planned seriously about who would succeed him in power. And, he was continually informed by his own experience following in the footsteps of Julius Caesar. He learned through hard-won lessons that the strengths of one ruler need not necessarily be the strengths of the next. As just one example, Augustus himself brought none of the military prowess of Julius to the table. But he was able to gather together great military minds to support his own outstanding skill in diplomacy. He further took note of the mutiny that emerged when Julius’s rule started to look like a monarchy or he pushed through change too quickly, instead styling himself as “first citizen” and ruling according to his own motto, “make haste, slowly.” The knowledge that the next in line might bring different skills to the table (and also that those skills might be more suitable to the times) was baked into Augustus’s understanding of the transfer of power. So when Augustus became ill in 23 BCE and was faced with the question of “Who next?” he jumped into action.
When there are no good options
Despite his knowledge of what being a successor entails and his apparent commitment to finding one, Augustus was, not unlike Julius Caesar, left with few natural options. With no biological son, nor any brothers, he cast his net to his nephew Marcellus (a blood connection, but lacking key experience), who died at 19. Then he turned to his childhood friend Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, who fit the job description (military experience, engineer, politician, diplomat) in all but blood relation, an inconvenience remedied when Agrippa married Augustus’s daughter and had sons – too young to succeed, but a measure of comfort. And then Agrippa died, followed by his sons Lucius and Gaius. So he turned to his stepsons, one of whom also died early in a freak accident. Finally, Augustus’s stepson Tiberius inherited power, chosen less for his abilities or blood relation or ambition than the fact that he was the last man standing.
Identifying rot
Augustus solidified and expanded an empire, avoided and, despite a bizarre lack of – or falling off of – successors, oversaw a peaceful transition that formalized the empire and the Julio-Claudian dynasty. But when your option for heir was from the actual bottom of the list and, further, had no real interest in being heir in the first place, there might be cause to further examine the heart of the organization. Hopefully, we’ve learned a few things over the centuries about using merit as a criterion over blood… Eventual heir Tiberius ruled over increasing chaos, witnessed the purge and exile of his family members by an ally, and himself fell into paranoia and cruelty, doing little to plan his own succession.
Works consulted
Augustus’ life offers lessons on succession
The Succession Problem: Emperor Augustus Searches for an Heir
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