Lessons from the Field

This article is the third of a three-part series on executive transitions—designed to help you better understand, prepare for, and navigate this important process.

Succession Planning: The Executive Director Search Process

By Bob Hazen

Since 2001, TACS' Executive Transition Team has conducted over fifty executive director searches, and have been closely involved in nearly a hundred more. Here are a few thoughts about things we have learned:

1. A good search process is as much about Board development as it is about selecting the new director. Throughout a good process, the search committee and the Board become more familiar with the organization and its needs as they try to figure out who is the best fit.
2. The search process starts way before the search. Preliminary planning work will pay off ten-fold later on. Begin with an assessment of the organization, including its strengths and weaknesses. Look at what you want to accomplish as an organization in the next five years, then think about what skill set it will take to get there.
3. Involve staff. "On the ground", they know more than the board may ever know about program delivery and needs, and what style of leadership will fit the culture of the organization.
4. Before you start the actual search, clarify not only desired experience, qualifications, and characteristics, but also the kind of person that will fit this role. Is it crucial to have a policy person, an administrator, a fundraiser, or a public spokesperson for the organization?
5. Organize the search at the beginning of the process. If busy board members are expected to be at an interview, schedule it three months in advance; don't wait until two weeks before the meeting. Most organized searches take three to four months, longer if a schedule isn't set in advance.
6. In most searches, 60 percent of the candidates will apply because they saw an advertisement and the other 40 percent will apply because they were personally recruited by a board member, staff member, stakeholder, funder, search consultant, or community partner. Guess where the strongest applications come from?
7. Top candidates always have other options. Searches are as much about "selling" the position and your organization as they are about selecting from a long list of possibilities.
8. Approach interviewing openly and interactively. Give people an opportunity to be themselves, because that's who you are hiring. Let them know who you are—they need to have a good sense of whether or not they can work with and for you.
9. Don't hesitate to ask candidates for the names of other people they have worked with and perhaps had disagreements with. If it's a local candidate you can usually find someone who is familiar with their previous work.
10. It is ALWAYS a bad idea to hire someone who isn't a good fit because you are tired of the process and just want to move forward.
11. Most importantly, once an agreement is reached with a new executive director, understand that the work is not over. A new phase of the process has just begun. The search committee should have already developed a clear list of deliverables that they want the new director to focus on, and they will measure the new director's performance against those deliverables. Devote effort to building a good relationship and a healthy communication style with the new director—there's no better investment of your time.
12. If you have the ability to do all of these things with your staff and board, you can probably do the search without help. If you don't, you may want to seek expert assistance. Feel free to give us a call.

Bob Hazen can be reached at 503.239.4001, ext. 108 or bh@tacs.org.