By Mike Phillips
One day, back in my corporate career, I lamented to the CEO that I was only batting 70% on recruiting.
He got a characteristically long look in his eyes, cleared his throat and said, “Michael, I wish I had such a good hiring average.” He then worked up a twinkle and said, “And I wish I could resolve my hiring mistakes as quickly as you do.”
This was one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever worked for. And for the record, he had plenty of criticisms of my often non-traditional ideas.
But here we are, and virtually all of us in Fernandina Beach have made a bad hire.
Going forward, a small but valuable question might be, “What happened?” but a better one would be, “Where do we go from here?”
I have a few suggestions — not as writ from the editorial chair — but as possibilities for the whole community to consider:
- Let’s don’t let the blame game begin. His resume was excellent, and his meet-and-greet presentations were the best. I knew no one who had reservations: He was the one.
- Picking too hard at what went wrong will get us nowhere. Yes, we’ll learn some lessons from this episode – but only time will tell if they are the lessons we need to learn.
- It will be very tempting for some good-old-boys to propose a good-old-boy as the next city manager. That might seem comfortable for some, but comfort inevitably will dissolve into lack of leadership – and possibly disaster.
- Maybe we should look where we haven’t looked before. I particularly am thinking of the many high-powered women who get a lot of things done in this community. I won’t name names. If you keep up on local events even a little bit, you probably know who I mean.
- And we should get a refund from those consultants. They screwed up big time.
My wise boss had a point: Everybody (and every community) makes mistakes. The winners are not those who fail to fall down. They are the ones who get up, dust off their britches and make it work the next time.
Amen Mr. Phillips! Lessons learned and then move on. I agree we need to consider a strong woman who may already be in our presence!
As a former retained Executive Search consultant for 35 years (now retired), it is common practice for a firm to guarantee the placement of the executive for two years, and if necessary, redo the search at no additional cost other than expenses. Refunds of fees have historically not been done unless contractually bound. I close with this. Written, “in depth” references are always submitted to the client for their evaluation and questions and most often shed light on traits of the executive.
PS: Qualified women should always be considered in the candidate pool.
True lessons learned.. I wonder how in depth that search actually was..were there aspects of this candidate’s background that were missed, discounted or ignored?
I assume you have the same thought I do, Mike……Victoria would be excellent. She has an excellent background and has been a lifetime resident. I’ve noticed a pleasant uptick in her increased participation of City events, but I severely doubt she would take the job.
We need to stop and condem the practice of tying to hire somebody based on something other than they’re the the most qualified and best PERSON for the job. We should hire the best candidate to be city manager. Hard stop! We should not conduct some social experiment but actually get somebody who can lead. If it’s a woman great if it’s a man great I don’t care. Just find the best person and hire them. Trying to divide us or pick people based on characteristics they have no control over is obscene in my opinion.
Here is short list of consideration that should NEVER be used when considering who the next City Manager should be.
Sex
Race
Age
Religion
Sexual orientation
I’m sure I’ve left a few out.
Even with the best intentions unfortunately almost all these characteristics will be taken under consideration either consciously or subconsciously. The sooner we can get away from this type of judgment the better off we will all be.
IMHO Here are my five that should be considered.
Having successfully shown the ability to do the job
Integrity
Empathy
Humility
Leadership
I know most of these are subjective. That’s why we need to trust this city council to use their “Wisdom” and make the proper selection.
Let’s all hope that they get it right.
They need to stop making it political.
One more suggestion. Take a lesson from free agency. Look for someone who is still in their present job and the community is trying to get him/her to stay. It might cost a little more to get someone to change “teams,” but that’s okay if you get a proven performer.