Spotlight on Search : CarterBaldwin Executive Search Newsletter

April 2009 Feature

Personalize Your Management Development (from the Harvard Business Review)
Author Natalie Shope Griffin outlines how Nationwide Financial's leadership-development program has produced hundreds of successful leaders. Go to article »

Hunting Executives —
The New Rules

The growing hidden job market

CEOs know that if they even whisper a potential opportunity that they will be inundated by unsolicited resumes and the friend of a friend of a friend for coffee – recruiters at all levels too. As a result, the hidden job market actually grows in a down economy. Your advocates connect you with amazing executives because they say you are one too – not because you’re looking, but because meeting you is an opportunity. Suddenly, the job no one knew existed becomes an opportunity followed up by an offer.

During a down economy, candidates seem like they are a dime a dozen, which creates several misperceptions and misappropriations of human resources and capital expenditures. There are no more candidates today than there were yesterday, there are just more unemployed people. Top talent is as rare as ever – and now, even harder to find and/or compete for.

With the pending retirement of the Boomer generation there will be a chasm that can not be filled through global outsourcing. The challenge in our recessionary economy is that top performers who aren’t currently engaged are entertaining several opportunities from fast growth sectors. At CarterBaldwin, we find that the most desirable executives, even if unengaged, are almost overwhelmed with opportunities – or have several options. At least when you approach a CXO who’s employed, your offer only competes with his/her current position.

You may find our new White Paper and the included HBR article, on the subjects of Succession Planning and Leadership Develoment, a little out of touch at first glance, but it is times like these to be as preemptive as possible in the war for talent. Your top performers are doing what it takes to make this quarter’s numbers. Their hard work is the real solution to this economy, but along with it comes a noticeable decline in opportunities for executives to meet and form/maintain bonds internally and externally with the talent necessary for your company’s future.

The time to hire, train, develop and retain the best talent for your organization is now - as fast and as loudly as you can. Let everyone else fight over that same talent in an up economy and compete over money rather than opportunity. By the way, we can help in either market…

Personalize Your Management Development

Most organizations struggle with leadership development. They promote top performers into management roles, put them through a few workshops and seminars, then throw them to the wolves. Managers with the ability to survive and thrive are rewarded; those without it are disciplined or reassigned. The problem is, an alarming number of people fall into the second category. This happens not because managers lack skills but because companies fail to realize that there is no single kind of leader-in-training. In this article, Natalie Shope Griffin, a consultant in executive and organizational development at Nationwide Financial, describes four kinds of managers-in-training, each embodying unique challenges and opportunities: reluctant leaders, arrogant leaders, unknown leaders, and workaholics. The author outlines specific training approaches tailored to each type of prospective leader. By focusing on the unique circumstances of individual managers, investing in them early in their careers, offering effective coaching, and providing real-life management experiences, Nationwide's leadership-development program has produced hundreds of successful leaders.