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Who should you choose to run a disruptive, new growth business?
According to Clayton Christiansen and Michael Raynor, authors of The Innovator's Solution, you should resist the temptation to choose managers based on what the authors call "right stuff" thinking.
The authors contend that most search committees and hiring executives classify candidates by attributes such as "good communicator," "results oriented," "decisive," and "good people skills." They also favor executives with a strong track record of successfully running other business units. It's not hard to find this traditional hiring strategy at work in many companies around the world; many organizations operate "fast track" management development programs, populated by their best and brightest young talent. Typically, these management trainees have been selected because they possess the "right stuff" attributes that the company has determined makes them attractive as future leaders.
Unfortunately, according to Christensen and Raynor, these traditional selection criteria are usually all wrong for leading a disruptive business. That's because the problems and challenges encountered when starting up and operating a new growth business are very different from those faced while managing a stable business unit. Christiansen and Raynor suggest that selecting that selecting the wrong type of leader is a primary reason that so many new growth businesses fail:
"A surprising number of innovations fail not because of some fatal technological flaw or because the market isn't ready. They fail because responsibility to build these businesses is given to managers or organizations whose capabilities are not up to the task. Corporate executives make this mistake because most often the very skills that propel organization to succeed in sustaining circumstances systematically bungle the best ideas for disruptive growth. An organization's capabilities become its disabilities when disruption is afoot."
Instead of focusing on "right stuff" attributes, the authors recommend that organizations focus their leadership searches on executives who have a willingness and an ability to learn:
"By focusing on ability to learn, it is possible to avoid the tramp of assuming that the finite list of competencies important for today are those that will be required in the future. A performance appraisal form targeted at identifying high-potential people would certainly cover basic technical and cognitive requirements, but would not ask for a ranking on right stuff attributes. It would focus on learning-oriented measures, such as 'seeks opportunities to learn,' 'seeks and uses feedback,' 'asks the right questions,' 'looks at things from new perspectives,' and 'learns from mistakes.' Some attributes of a good learner will show up in achievements, of course, but the quest is to determine whether an employee is willing to learn new skills." |
