Everyone agrees in the abstract that the number one responsibility of a governing board is to identify and recruit an excellent president when the time is at hand. Yet an astonishing number of institutions have no succession-planning process in place, and trustees themselves confess that they are more dissatisfied with this aspect of their work than with any other. When the time comes to move from thinking about succession to the hard work of conducting an effective search, boards must understand what is involved, what expectations they should have, how the search is to be managed, and what attributes they should be seeking in a new leader.
Each search process is unique, but certain guidelines deserve consideration:
The process should start with a full discussion within the board of job specifications. What skill sets are most needed at this juncture in the college’s history, what kinds of experiences are likely to prove especially valuable, and what personal qualities should be given heaviest weight? Deciding on the final job specifications requires a delicate balance. Too much vagueness up front is a sure recipe for trouble later on, but at the same time it can be dangerous to be highly specific. If a board is too demanding when it sets specifications, the process will result in an unattainable standard for prospective candidates. Insisting on transformational leadership is not always realistic.
It is at least as important for boards to think through key institutional issues before beginning a full-fledged search. Such ruminating can be done informally (though not casually), and it is important in part because a new leader can be recruited more easily if, in the words of one of my former colleagues, “the institution knows what it is about and is ready to be led.” To be sure, learning from the ideas and perspectives of prospective candidates is healthy, but it is highly desirable that the trustees have their own priorities reasonably clear before seeking a new leader. Otherwise the risks of wasting time and misleading good people increase dramatically.
Searches need to be guided by a board committee that is small enough to be able to function effectively and that understands its responsibility to keep all members of the board, who share equally in final selection authority, appropriately informed of progress. The intensive nature of a well-run search requires that the board establish efficient machinery for carrying it out. Having too many people involved complicates excessively the scheduling of meetings and managing of the process.
The search committee should allow enough time to make a well-considered decision, but also move expeditiously. Wasting time can lead to the loss of promising candidates. Searches carried out under intense time pressure run risks of going astray. Orderly processes are important, and there needs to be ample time to examine both internal and external candidates, to consult widely, and to conduct extensive due diligence. But, once the search begins, there is everything to be said for keeping the process moving.
To the extent possible, committees should respect the legitimate interest of potential candidates in confidentiality; otherwise, promising candidates may not agree to be considered. Public universities in particular may be compelled by law or regulations to have an “open” or “public” search. Private colleges and universities can encounter difficulties as a result of aggressive reporting by student newspapers. There is no full solution to this problem, since at some stage it is necessary for various constituencies to be in the loop, but those involved should take great care to prevent premature, and unauthorized, disclosures of lists. Such disclosures can be unfair to all parties and damaging — especially if potential candidates high on the list who already hold positions elsewhere are pressured by their home institutions to withdraw their names.
Search committees should have realistic expectations concerning the depth of the pool of well-qualified candidates. Exaggerated notions of how easy it will be to assemble a list of such candidates are common, even when the open position is president of an exceptionally well-regarded institution. Over and over, search committees begin their work convinced that their opening is so enticing that they will surely end up with five or 10 top candidates. This hardly ever happens. Winnowing invariably leads to an often painful recognition that the committee has, if it is lucky, two or (luckier still) three promising candidates. Often only one person looks truly right for the job. When this situation arises, for reasons that may well be idiosyncratic, it is necessary to accept reality and press on.
The retiring president should be consulted closely throughout the search process, but it should be absolutely clear that the responsibility for making a decision rests with the outside directors on the board. The president will have, one hopes, an especially astute understanding of both the qualities that a successor needs to lead the organization and the strengths and weaknesses of internal candidates. It would be foolish in the extreme to fail to take advantage of that knowledge. It is entirely possible for the president to be helpful without presuming to have the last word, but the days are gone when boards relied on the president to choose a successor. It is the board, looking ahead, that has to exercise this responsibility. Relying too heavily on the current president can inhibit independence of judgment, stifle fresh thinking, and perhaps obscure the need to establish new strategic directions.
The search committee should also consult closely with faculty and staff members, whose thoughts about the needs of the organization should be taken into account. Faculty leaders must be closely involved throughout the search process. The committee needs to reassure them that it appreciates their importance and will give careful consideration to their views when making its decision.
It is wise to “take it from the top” when reviewing lists of candidates. In too many instances, search committees seem to feel an obligation to rank 20 or 30 candidates, and to spend a great deal of time deciding, for example, who is 14th and who is 15th. Searches are not about trying to field a football team; the objective is to identify a small number of outstanding individuals and then sign up the most promising candidate. Because candidates have different backgrounds, it may help to group them into categories — insiders and outsiders, scientists and humanists, experienced leaders and promising younger people — and then select the top candidates from each group before making comparisons across groups. Concentrating the search committee’s limited time and energy on the best prospects is the wise approach.
Search firms can be helpful, but their role needs to be clearly defined. Boards generally recognize that finding a new president is likely to be time-consuming and, quite probably, controversial. As a result, some tend to delegate too much authority to the firm chosen to assist in the search. There is also the unavoidable danger that a search firm operating with too little guidance will want to impose its own job description, and even some of its favorite candidates, on the search.
In my experience, search firms are especially helpful in producing lists of possible candidates, including some truly fresh names, and in managing the paper and the logistics of the search process — a function that is especially important if the organization looking for new leadership has limited staff resources of its own. Opinions differ as to whether search firms should also contact candidates to determine their interest and availability. In some cases, senior members of a search firm may be in a good position to open doors and to learn if an individual has an interest in the position. But a strong prospective candidate often requires considerable persuasion even to agree to participate in even a preliminary discussion of the opportunity. In such circumstances, it is often best if a member of the search committee, or the chairman of the board, calls the prospective candidate.
Boards must do their own due diligence and do it very carefully. In this critically important part of the search process, it will not suffice for boards to hear only what friends of a candidate, or others with special interests in the outcome, have to say. Hard work is required to check references and to contact people in a position to provide helpful information, even though they may not have been listed as references. Thus, it may be tempting to hand these tasks over to the search firm. However, as a search reaches its final phase, it can be dangerous for board members to assign these responsibilities to anyone else. The search firm may not be well positioned to make all of the critical contacts that need to be made; moreover, the firm has an understandable interest in concluding the process.
Unfortunately, it has become harder and harder to obtain candid, honest references, in part because of legal commitments by former supervisors and colleagues to “speak no evil” about individuals who have signed severance agreements — and the attendant fear of lawsuits. Severance agreements may prohibit senior managers and board members from disparaging a person who has been let go; the agreements sometimes even provide “scripts” that suggest which positive comments should be made in response to queries. This development increases the risks that the wrong people will be appointed to positions. Legal issues aside, individuals may also simply be reluctant to say anything negative about anyone.
As the end of a search nears, there is no substitute for carrying out an all-encompassing probe of a candidate’s actual performance in other settings. Board members must learn as best they can how the candidate has handled setbacks and pressure, what hard evidence there is of a spark of creativity, how successfully the candidate has recruited good colleagues and inspired others, whether there are any warning flags about integrity, and how hard the person can and will work. Of course, no candidate is without flaws, and the goal should be to understand a person’s limitations and to assess how detrimental those limitations are likely to be in the setting at hand. In some situations, key members of a search committee have traveled many hours to have long, face-to-face discussions with the individual being considered. No one has said that this was time wasted.
There is much to be said for self-selection and for letting prospective candidates help the board make its final decision. Candidates should be encouraged to think seriously and openly about whether a particular opportunity is right for them. Board members must then listen carefully and avoid the temptation to overpersuade. Reluctant dragons are rarely, if ever, good choices. If a candidate seems genuinely reluctant, it is almost always best to thank the individual for his honesty and to move on.
Not every search will succeed, and it is better to acknowledge that a search has failed than to elect a mediocre candidate. No one likes to admit that a search did not produce the desired result, but it does happen sometimes. It is almost always better to seek an interim solution than to start down a path that seems unlikely to lead the organization where it needs to go, even if that means persuading the incumbent to stay in office longer or naming an acting president. As one commentator put it, “Mediocrity is like the Roach Motel. Once it checks in, you can’t get it out.”
William G. Bowen is a senior research associate and president emeritus of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and a former president of Princeton University. This essay is adapted from The Board Book: An Insider’s Guide for Directors and Trustees, to be published in April by W.W. Norton. Copyright 2008 by William G. Bowen.
http://chronicle.com Section: Commentary Volume 54, Issue 29, Page A40
