top ten success secrets to better hiring in china

Success Secrets

To Better Hiring in China

A Special Report

By

Michael Whelan

Simple Strategies to Optimize Your Hiring for Maximum Effectiveness

THE PALIO GROUP

©2014 ThePalioGroupSA.com Top Ten Success Secrets to Better Hiring in China: A Special Report by Michael Whelan 2

About Michael Whelan Michael Whelan is a recognized business growth expert and senior leadership advisor based in Beijing. He is absolutely fanatical about innovative, quantified, high-performance, high-quality, senior leadership hiring, retention, and

development in China.

Since entering the executive recruiting business in 1993 in Hong Kong, Michael has helped his client companies grow their profits by successfully recruiting hundreds of high-performance executives across Asia and China in the last two decades. In the process, he has made every mistake known to man, possibly more. He has also evolved and learned a great deal.

Michael has, arguably, more experience engineering company growth through senior executive recruiting than 98% of those practicing the trade in China. Michael brings the hard-knocks wisdom borne out of these years – and an innovative mindset focused on driving explosive growth – to his clients to generate powerful business results.

Today, Michael leads an elite team of hand-selected teammates at The Palio Group. He is most interested in working on demanding, performance-critical leadership roles with ideal clients: mid-sized companies in the manufacturing, aerospace, auto and heavy equipment sectors.

These companies are led by decisive, intuitive leaders with clear objectives, a strong sense of urgency, and an equally strong competitive hunger for dynamic business expansion in China. They are strategic, high-impact global leaders in search of the same in China to outpace their competitors and dominate their markets.

Michael’s ideal clients enjoy a unique Palio approach to their growth challenges that aligns client and consultant to produce accelerated profits, and that:

• Seamlessly welds client and consultant together from the start • Produces “measurably superior,” high-impact candidates • Guarantees candidate tenure for 2-5 years • Chops client cost/benefit ratios dramatically • Cuts client risk by up to two-thirds • Tracks and analyzes leader performance • Provides management insights into accelerated results • Rewards innovation and consistently superior performance over time • Completely reframes the business growth challenge to create consistent,

documented, high value, win-win-win outcomes

THE PALIO GROUP


Introduction China can be puzzling….now there’s an understatement! For those who have been involved in managing and growing operations in China, these words will ring particularly true. Some, however, might be wondering about the value to be gotten out of the time spent reading through this material and implementing the actions prescribed. For you, I would suggest that if there were one single act you could commit that would have the greatest impact on your life and business in China, it is hiring your top China executive. Nothing else has so much power, such leverage potential, for determining the outstanding success, abject failure, or what’s more common, the under-‐performance -‐-‐ of your operation in this market. Because of this fact, the payback for doing this right; finding, attracting and retaining the best possible leadership talent, is nearly infinite. That makes it a cause truly worthy of your personal attention. Whatever other factors you have taken the care to attend to, none will come anywhere near having the multiplying, cascading, reverberating effect on you personally, and the business you are responsible for, than this critical decision will. So. Ignore this at your own peril. OR -‐-‐ devote to this task the time, focus and energy it requires and deserves. You will be nobly rewarded again and again – to your eternal satisfaction and the consternation of your competition. Read on!

THE PALIO GROUP


In short form, the Top Ten Success Secrets are: 1. Get directly involved

2. Ask yourself what you want accomplished

3. Calculate ALL the costs of NOT getting this done

4. Ask yourself what essential skills, experience,

attitude and character are required to perform well in this role

5. Ask yourself what kind of person will work best

with you, your customers, teammates, stakeholders, subordinates

6. Decide how you will measure results

7. Decide what the rewards are for achieving those

results 8. Find a search partner you can trust

9. Prepare internally

10. Ask yourself what your company has to offer

THE PALIO GROUP


The Top Ten Success Secrets, elaborated upon, are:

1. Get directly involved If this is a direct report, and a senior position requiring outstanding performance, no one is in a better position than you to define and decide on the parameters. And no one understands better than you do the dynamics, the value of the leverage built in to this role, the “force multiplier” it represents. Rather than have others guess at precisely what you want in such a critical role, get directly involved in this and manage the recruitment process yourself. The payoff WILL be enormous. Set the standards for how you want this done. Decide for yourself what is ideal, what is practical, and what trade-‐offs you are willing to make regarding experience, capabilities, maturity, style, potential, judgment, influencing skills, etc.

2. Ask yourself what you want accomplished

Start by asking yourself what, basically, you want to get done with this position. What specific tasks need achieving? Use the simplest, most basic language you can to articulate what it is you want accomplished over time.

Break this up into quarters if that makes sense; what do you want and expect to get done in the first 90, 180 270 and 360 days?

THE PALIO GROUP


Think also about what happens over the longer term if the person hired does extremely well; what is their career trajectory? Who does this person report to? What other stakeholders do they need to satisfy? What resources do they need to succeed? What might be the next step if/when they succeed? Put down in writing what you want done. Don’t use a Job Description. Instead, create a scorecard -‐-‐ 5-‐8 major objectives which, if achieved, would represent an “A” performance in the first year. Then, assign weights on a scale of 1-‐10 to each of your bullet point ‘achievements.’ This will help distill the reason the position exists and what concrete goals it is designed to accomplish. Expect to make adjustments as you refine your list.

3. Calculate ALL the costs of NOT getting this done To further your clarifications of the role, and what it is worth to the organization, tally up what it would cost NOT to get this job done. Assign a real currency cost to each item. Include the direct and indirect costs: things like salary, bonuses, entertainment, travel, social benefits, etc. are the obvious pieces. How about the

cost of opportunities forgone, lost growth in market share, damage to your position in the market, lower profits, and/or revenues, or the senior management time devoted to compensating for this not getting done?

This is a leadership position. Think

about all the bottlenecks, staff turnover, inefficiencies, wastage, and the like that occur without good leadership. Then complete your calculation in actual currency costs for this specific role. If you don’t have exact figures, estimate. You may shock yourself at what NOT filling the position is now costing and will cost your company in the future.

THE PALIO GROUP


4. Ask yourself what essential skills, experience,

attitude and character are required to perform well in this role Start with what you think are the absolutes required to do this job well. Are you just looking for a body to fill this position, given what you’ve calculated above, or a live wire, super-‐capable, multi-‐skilled, high-‐performance type? Your call, but be as clear as you can about what the absolute essentials are. Don’t bolt on unnecessary degrees, years of experience, or industry knowledge. Do you want someone sharp with numbers? Then list that, not an MBA. Be as direct as you can in stipulating what is needed to succeed. This is especially important in a developing economy like China; there are precious few reference points, so the clearer you are, the better off you’ll be identifying those who can do the job. Beyond strictly technical qualifications, take a good look at what kind of interactions are key to success in this role; are those internal or external, with government or private sector, fairly straightforward or woefully complex. Mapping these out should give you a clearer sense of what’s needed and guide you in your determination of what kind of character and attitude would do well in this role.

THE PALIO GROUP


5. What kind of person will work best with you, your customers, teammates

It’s not only the technical qualifications that count, it’s also all those touchy feely bits too. If this role requires lots of interaction and coordination, collaboration and negotiating with people: you, teammates, distant colleagues, and/or customers, you know what kind of personality/character will work best. Build that into your requirements up front or later on you’ll wish you had. If this is beginning to make sense to you and you are interested in knowing more about how to succeed in growing your company with senior leaders in China, or if you are experiencing a growth impasse, call or text me (+86 139 1112 5683) or email me at [email protected] so we can bring some expertise to bear on your issues. This isn’t a pitch. It’s an offer to open a dialog on your challenges in China.

6. Decide how you will measure results

I’ve been surprised in the past at how many companies don’t do this, or do it and then don’t connect it directly to their reward systems, or have reward systems imported from more developed markets without much

adjustment for conditions in China. If you have clearly defined the results you’re after in a scorecard, then you’ve already put your finger on the metrics you will use to determine success, and the degree of success in this role. You may need to tweak your reward system to be sure it is compellingly attractive to candidates in China.

THE PALIO GROUP


7. Decide what the rewards are for achieving those results

Depending on your company’s systems and philosophy, but with an eye to the market in general (you’ll need some advice here), and the costs to the organization for not getting this done, you want to outline an attractive system of rewards for getting this job done. Strangely enough, many companies want to attract top performers, but then design or offer poor reward systems, and wonder why they can’t achieve their objectives or find capable candidates for these roles. Make this piece sing and you’ll be pleased at the quality of talent willing to have a look at your company. At the very least, you must strike a balance between what needs doing, the skills and effort required to do the job well, and the rewards. If you want to attract real high-‐performance types, set your targets but also make provisions for out-‐of-‐the-‐ballpark performance. In a developing market like China, you may be pleasantly surprised -‐-‐ but be aware, reality here is always negotiable, so if you don’t have a provision for rewarding stellar performers, you’ll seldom attract them to explore your opportunity. Whatever you do, don’t cap the rewards; leave them open-‐ended for best results.

THE PALIO GROUP


8. Find a search partner you can trust

I am assuming you are recruiting a senior executive, someone who will have considerable positive leverage on company results if they perform well. These folks are not constantly on the lookout for new positions, in China or

elsewhere. Typically, they are happily drilling away at something they consider a worthwhile challenge – and succeeding. You are going to have to interrupt their lives and get them to listen to something that should be compelling, intriguing, worth exploring further. They get a lot of calls. If they hear a well-‐prepared, professionally delivered, full-‐information brief from someone they trust – as a start, you have a chance at winning a share of their mind and taking the matter further. If not, well… game over. So do yourself a big favor. Find a partner, a person you personally believe in, who has the maturity, knowledge, experience, and professional gravitas to deliver that message to high-‐caliber talent. As a friend of mine puts it, “someone who can have an adult conversation with senior management.” For senior positions, seek out those who have been in the search business for at least 10-‐15 years in China and who have worked in industries other than search. That will get you the added experience and perspective you need to get this serious task accomplished to a high-‐quality standard. To find the right partner, you’ll need to dig a bit. Do not delegate this untidy piece or you’ll live to regret it. Shop around. Get referrals. Check multiple references by phone and do it yourself.

THE PALIO GROUP


Speak directly with the individual consultants who will execute your search. Grill them until you’re satisfied you’ve found one you believe in and feel you can trust to deliver concrete results. Be sure you are talking to the person who will actually do your work, not a salesperson or a supervisor. You’ve got a lot riding on this decision, so be thorough. Think long-‐ term working relationship, determined commitment, trusted advisor, and partner. Communicate your standards and expectations clearly to your partner and then hold them absolutely accountable for a quality process, communicating with you, holding your hand if you need it, quality of candidates presented, and end-‐results. You can be demanding and you can demand rigor; you should. Just don’t be inflexible or unthinking. Listen to your partner, assess what you’re hearing, and decide. Recruiting is a team sport, so once you’ve picked a teammate, value them like you did on the sports fields at school.

I must warn you about an attitude that I have seen defeat many search efforts. Don’t fall into this yourself, and that is, making the search for suitable candidates solely your search partner’s problem. It’s yours too. It’s a shared challenge and the process for achieving success should be agreed between the two of you up front, not after the fact.

THE PALIO GROUP


9. Prepare internally

This may seem obvious, but get your ducks in a row internally before you launch. Get the headcount approved; be sure you have internal resources in place for the person hired so he/she can succeed. Obtain clearance for the compensation package you are going to offer, make sure you have buy-‐in from all the stakeholders required. Brief your team about the new position, define the process and assign roles: who interviews, in-‐person or

over the phone, what weight they carry, who makes decisions, etc.

If you really want to get organized, create your scorecard, add weights, and get explicit agreement with all the interviewers on a

standard set of questions that all will ask, and that are based on what you are attempting to accomplish by filling this position. Spell out the ratings that will be used by all interviewers with all candidates based on this list. Go all the way -‐-‐ give them each a simple form to work from during their interviews and timeframe for each interview. According to some studies, this standardization actually triples your chance of hiring the right candidate compared to ordinary interviewing techniques, so why not use it? By the way, while you are considering all this, remember, there are two major mistakes you can make, not one: 1) you can hire the wrong person and 2) you can miss hiring the right person. Most companies, and virtually all big companies in China, focus exclusively on, and design their hiring systems around, not hiring the wrong person. They then happily sail past fabulous talent without realizing it. Make sure you strike a balance internally and recognize that, in a rapidly evolving market like China, the second mistake can be as large as the first.

THE PALIO GROUP


Everyone worth her/his salt in China is in the midst of numerous ‘career advancement processes’ and is being made multiple job offers. You can safely assume you are in a horse race. Any delay in your process while you wait for HQ clearance could kill a deal and all the work that has gone into finding you a super candidate. This can also damage your reputation in the market when disappointed candidates slag your company for being bureaucratic or disorganized or worse. It happens, just don’t let it happen to you. Make sure you have all your systems in place and working properly to cycle through the hiring process smoothly.

10. Ask yourself what your company has to offer

Finally, before you launch your search, sit back and ask yourself,

“Why would a person with all these qualifications, experience, soft skills, career successes, and glowing references, want to stop what they are doing so well now, unplug from their current company, resign, and join us to do what we have in mind?”

This is a crucial item. Be dead honest. List all the reasons. Then cross off everything on your list that could be said by any other company. Things like, “we treat our employees like family.” Or, “our company is a leader in / the largest / globally recognized, etc.…” “We offer competitive compensation” and my favorite, “we are committed to China for the long term,” and the like. None of this is compelling or attractive in any way, and some of it is jarringly empty of content, so ditch it and define the real reasons a winner should join you in the position as you have defined it.

THE PALIO GROUP


If you don’t have a compelling answer to this question, then you’d better rethink all of the above. The most capable candidates I have met in China view their work lives like an athletic career; it has a limited number of seasons; injuries, setbacks and pitfalls are the norm; great opportunities are rare and false ones, many. Without fail, these candidates are able to sniff out good possibilities and differentiate these from poor ones, and they do so quickly and with a cold eye. When I ask clients the question above, they sometimes become offended and defensive. I remind them that you MUST ask this question for each candidate because, in every single case, your candidates will be asking themselves exactly this. If they don’t ask, their wives or husbands or mothers will! You must provide them with personally and professionally compelling reasons to come to you. Do so and you will succeed in recruiting high-‐performance talent to your team. And don’t forget, as the new boss, you are one of the key factors in the “why you should join us” column, so think about what gifts you bring to them in this role. In essence, what I am saying here is that

you, and all who are involved in this effort, must be in “sales” mode first, screening mode second, not the reverse. An open and welcoming attitude towards those you interview will yield the richest, thought-‐provoking conversations, and ultimately, choices, that you will be pleased to be making.

THE PALIO GROUP


Sell first – you, your company, the position, your plans for the future and how this position ties to them, the rewards, the possibilities, the career path, what they can expect, timelines, what you are seeking to have accomplished. Screen second. You can, should and must be thorough, of course. Trust me. To anyone who has been through this, it can be very testing stuff but the rewards of recruiting superior leadership talent in China far outweigh the early effort required to meet this challenge. If you doubt this, go back to your calculations of total costs, and imagine how enormously truly enlightened leadership changes that equation.

There is, of course, more to the puzzle than these first ten steps, but adopting as many of these as you can, will put you a long way farther along the path toward success in recruiting the ablest, best-‐fitting, high-‐performance senior leaders you can. You’ll save yourself some heartache and missteps and be happier and more successful in your hiring in China with these, I promise.

THE PALIO GROUP


Going beyond these initial steps, there are many other aspects of recruiting in China at a senior level that are crucial to success and worth pondering. Among these:

• How a “Business As Usual” approach to senior recruiting will absolutely KILL any chance of real growth in your operations in China

• The 7 huge advantages your mid-‐sized business has over the giant multinationals in China

• How to STREAMLINE your recruitment process and SKYROCKET its value

• What all the BEST candidates in China are looking for • Why the HOTTEST candidates may be NOT INTERESTED in

your company and what you can do about it • How to CATCH ERRORS EARLY in your process BEFORE they

are FATAL • What your incentive program says about your company

culture – how you can turn this into a massive advantage • What you DON’T KNOW about the candidate to whom you

are making an offer -‐-‐ BUT MUST • Why in China “passive” candidates aren’t really • 5 things you should DEMAND from your search partner • 5 major reasons senior searches FAIL

I could go on and on with many more areas for consideration and in fact, I will be addressing some of these over time in my blog and The Palio newsletter. By now, you must know that China can be a treacherous environment to operate in, and that it can also be a very rewarding and profitable market for those able to navigate its seas successfully. The difference can be enormous for the knowledgeable. For others, well, there’s always the usual drill: push the button…

THE PALIO GROUP


What should be abundantly clear by now is that for most, attracting the best senior talent is not going to be accomplished with any rate of success without exceptional guidance and assistance. Those you select to help you will ensure your business success or potentially doom you to failure in China. Yes, it’s a scary proposition, and the stakes are high indeed, so identifying the right partner becomes your first critical task. It will dictate all that follows. That leads immediately to separating the wheat from the chaff. Everyone at hundreds of search firms – me included – is going to tell you they are wonderful, do excellent work, are magnificent people, etc. Your challenge is to determine who is telling you the real truth – who can actually deliver what you and your business need, and in fact, must have, to excel in China. But let’s not make this overly complicated. Here’s a really simple and easy litmus test: as you speak to potential partners in China, find time to ask them what performance metrics / business results they track after placing their candidates with clients. Pause and listen carefully to the answer you get. Chances are, you won’t hear anything cogent or compelling. Why? Because most search firms’ interest in clients ends at the point of offer or candidate placement. By design, they have no enduring interest in what their candidates contribute to their new companies and hence, do not track this. We do. We even offer clients credits for sharing performance data with us over time. Yep, like 6-‐8 years into our candidates’ progress with them… “Thanks to Mike’s support, we were able to multiply profits six fold (597%), double revenues (261%), and nearly freeze headcount (+10%). That’s phenomenal!”

President US/German Tier 1 Auto Supplier

THE PALIO GROUP


“We increased China revenues by 92% in the 1st year… from USD 38 million to USD 73 million, by 44% in the second year, and cumulatively, nearly tripled revenues (276%) in the third year. That is just remarkable growth.” EVP Sales US Industrial Manufacturer Here’s another test. Ask for the names, titles, and telephone numbers of three candidates still at the companies where they were placed 5 or more years after placement. Ask for the hiring managers’ names. Then call the hiring managers and listen to what they have to say about the performance of those executives placed with their companies. You’ll gain a very solid sense of what your consultant and potential partner can REALLY deliver. This won’t tell you everything, but it will give you a concrete point of reference, and a confidence level from which to make your decisions about who you ought to be partnering with and why. “…7 years…near-‐zero to Euro 45 million in annual revenues, and from last to first place in industry rankings in China…speaks volumes for what is possible with Michael’s quality approach to company growth.” Managing Director North Asia European Airport Systems Company Now, let me issue a challenge to you. If you have read this far, you are obviously vitally interested in finding the optimal growth solution for your company in China. You know in your gut getting this right will make all the difference in the world to you, to your career, to your company. “I’ve worked with Michael for some time now – and I thoroughly recommend him. Specifically, he is someone you should talk to if you are having trouble attracting leadership talent in China – he makes what is otherwise challenging and confusing, straightforward and successful.” Global VP Human Resources US Heavy Equipment Manufacturer

THE PALIO GROUP


So here. Do ONE thing TODAY. Move the needle on the gauge of your China success just a tiny bit. Pick up the phone and call or text me on my mobile number (I’m in Beijing) +86 139 1112 5683. Put me to the test! I’d be happy to be the first – OR last – person you call in carrying out this exercise. Once you have completed your due diligence, we can talk about what your challenges are in China, about possibilities, about what might be. Pick up the phone or meet me in person, depending on your location and preference -‐-‐ to explore what your biggest challenge is in growing your company, attracting outstanding senior leadership in China, and what you can do to achieve a massive breakthrough. Just let yourself go for a minute and fantasize about what a really great top guy in China running your operations there, would do for you, your career, your bottom line, your company, and your reputation. I hope to get the chance soon to help YOU create the success in China that gets you more of what YOU want and deserve. To your success in China,

You can start your due diligence here http://www.thepaliogroupsa.com