How Team Culture Determines The Source of CEO Candidates
Whether to recruit from outside or within will always depend on the existing organizational culture. It’s all about considering whether recruiting from within, will fast–track desired change and progress, or will reinforce cultures that are best transformed. These considerations definitely apply to not only organizational, but also national circumstances. Some recent observations could perhaps shed much needed light, on this issue that presents constant dilemmas.
Deliberations with an interesting chief executive officer, led to the need for culture change and more importantly, re-branding the organization anew. The ultimate achievement was rejuvenated strategic direction and purpose.
Meanwhile, the organization was experiencing some challenges. A new operating system meant to enhance efficiency in the business process had been introduced. Some employees were nonetheless still clinging to the old ways of doing things, no matter the insistence on changed paradigms. In fact, it was felt that some were deliberately forestalling the modus operadi, so that the new system could be abandoned.
As such, the need for organizational change training, for the whole team could not have been an overstatement. But, what happened? Despite seeing the need, the CEO eventually insinuated that all staff had been competitively engaged. Thus, they were adequately prepared for the changes, only requiring to be guided on the new operation system. Really?
Secondly, the CEO felt his policy of acquiring well trained employees from the industry, could suffice. They were the ones to drive organizational change, based on the experiences acquired from their previous stations. It later turned out that the CEO was never comfortable with training of his team. He feared exposing the company to losing trained staff to the competition. So, the matter of organizational change or re-branding was shelved and our interactions seemingly severed.
Not long after, the company directors were disoriented by continued stagnation in performance. Two years since our interactions with the company, the directors decided to sell off a huge chunk of their ownership to a strategic partner.
But sadly, the first casualty of this change was the CEO himself. He could not fit in the new strategic direction. A new CEO with a completely different mindset was recruited. Surprisingly, his first project in the company was the change management training that had somehow been resisted by the earlier CEO.
Why did this new CEO embrace training at such an early stage? Most likely, he knew that focused training unearths and sometimes eradicates cultures that could be inhibiting organizational growth. Further, it transforms people skills and morale as well behaviors. More still, the team becomes adaptable to change and new ideas that lead to new strategic direction.
What of recruiting organizational seniors from within? It has the effect of entrenching existing organizational culture. This could be desirable if the idea is to maintain existing high performance culture. Nevertheless, challenges arise if that culture inhibits growth and progress. One may therefore need to be extremely careful of the status of the organizational culture, whenever there is need for leadership change.
How then can one know whether and when the culture is an inhibition to organizational progress? It all depends on the people comprising the organization. As Sir Dan Robinson, a British Educationist insinuates, “there are three types of people; those who don’t move unless they have to; those who move when encouraged to do so and those who just keep moving.”
The people that keep moving have higher chances of causing organizational transformation, thus driving change and progress. Essentially, the decision on who to be recruited, and from where may largely depend on the category of people that influence organizational direction in each case. This becomes even more crucial in a fast changing world that demands vibrant strategic thinking and planning.
Meanwhile,
- If you wanted to holistically and strategically transform the fortunes of your organization, where would you start?
- Did you ever know that we can help your organization to completely transform direction for the better in only 2 – 3 days?
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- How about starting with a non committal, one on one discussion on how the transformation can be achieved?
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