CHAPTER  |  THIRTY-SEVEN

The Ultimate Requirement for Running a Good Organization

Ask management experts what the primary requirement is for running a good organization, and you'll get a variety of answers. Peter Drucker had only one answer: “Making the right people decisions is the ultimate means of controlling an organization well. Such decisions reveal how competent management is, what its values are, and whether it takes its job seriously.”¹ People decisions start with staffing.

Staff for Strength

Unfortunately, staffing isn't easy, and there are some strong disagreements about how to make the right decisions. For example, you may be in an organization where the hiring philosophy is, “We want well-rounded individuals; we promote people who can do anything reasonably well and make few mistakes.” To Drucker, these were the wrong answers. He said you should staff for strength to accomplish things, not to avoid mistakes.

This admonition stood out when I first read it because I knew how much Drucker admired the military and its way of doing things. Yet, the U.S. military, at least over the last half century or so, is definitely in the camp of the “well-rounded” individual and has tended to promote such people to the higher ranks. For example, a website on U.S. Air Force Academy admissions says, “Our investment in developing well-rounded leaders at the Academy pays untold dividends to our nation.”²

Drucker, however, pointed out that many great leaders have had weaknesses that, according to the “well-rounded” view, should have kept them out of leadership roles. For example, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt drank to excess. General George Patton had a terrible temper. Ronald Reagan got bored easily and sometimes fell asleep during briefings. Even Jack Welch, legendary CEO of General Electric, a man who has been called the greatest business executive of the last century, mused once that maybe he was a little too emotional.

Here are Drucker's three prime rules for good staffing:³

1. Think through the requirements of the job.
2. Choose three or four candidates for the job rather than immediately settling on one.
3. Don't make the selection without discussing the choice with a number of knowledgeable colleagues.

Think Through the Requirements of the Job

A poorly designed job may be an impossible job that no one can do. What you get is work that is done poorly or not at all. In addition, a poorly designed job risks waste or, at best, the misallocation of scarce and valuable human resources.

To design a job properly, you need to thoroughly analyze the objectives and requirements of the job, deciding which few requirements are really crucial to that job's performance. A long list of requirements won't do it.

In a similar vein, you want to avoid a candidate who minimally meets all requirements of the job, but isn't particularly strong in the few critical areas that are essential. When Abraham Lincoln wanted to promote his most successful general, Ulysses S. Grant, to be general-in-chief of the Union forces during the Civil War, one of his cabinet officers warned that Lincoln should not expect too much from Grant because he was a hard drinker. Lincoln retorted, “Ask his brand so I can send a case to all my generals.” Lincoln knew what was important to win the war.

Choose Multiple Candidates for a Job

Many promotions are made with only one or, at most, two candidates having been considered. According to Drucker, you should consider three or four candidates, all of whom meet the minimum qualifications of staffing for strength. This wisdom is frequently ignored, as hiring executives make assumptions about other candidates’ suitability before measuring any of their qualifications against the prime job requirements.

In one organization, the staffing executive, who had been with the company for a year, wanted to appoint a particular manager from within the company to a senior position. He sent the recommendation forward to be approved by his boss. His boss asked to see the résumés of additional internal candidates for the job. So, the staffing executive used the old ploy of straw candidates. He selected three additional candidates for the position. He did not know the three well or think there was anything special about them; in fact, he chose them for that reason.

The staffing executive sent all four résumés to his boss. In addition to demonstrating questionable integrity in using this ploy, he made two major errors. First, he did not think through all the job requirements, which his boss had done. In addition, he relied on his personal knowledge and opinion of the candidates, without investigating other aspects of their work. That would have been bad enough, but he even failed to read the résumés he sent forward. He merely attached a strong letter of recommendation for his candidate.

What the staffing executive did not know is that one of those three additional candidates had been with the organization for many years and had a reputation as an up-and-coming manager with superior capabilities. The boss knew him well. However, for the past year he had been on special assignment away from corporate headquarters, so the staffing executive wasn't familiar with him. As it happened, his background and proven experience were particularly suited to the position. In fact, he was so well-suited, he should have been the prime candidate.

This was, in fact, one reason the staffing executive's boss had asked to see the résumés of additional candidates. If this manager was not even included for consideration, he wanted to find out why. If he was included, but not selected, he wanted to see if he was missing some important information before he approved the promotion. The staffing executive was fortunate enough not to overlook forwarding the résumé—then he probably would really have been in trouble. However, had he looked closely at the résumés, he would have immediately realized he was not recommending the best candidate.

In a face-to-face interview with the staffing executive, the boss soon determined that he did not know who should have been the obvious candidate. He could perhaps be forgiven his oversight, but it still did not reflect well on his ability as a high-level manager. Had he promoted the wrong manager, that might have caused a number of problems in the organization. After a discussion of the requirements and the qualifications of the candidates, both the boss and the staffing executive agreed that the formerly ignored candidate should be promoted to the job.

Discuss Your Choice with Colleagues First

I want to state emphatically that Peter Drucker was not saying that a promotion is a group decision. It is not, and you must take responsibility for the outcome, even if those you consult give you erroneous information or possibly a poor recommendation. You are still responsible.

However, it makes sense to share your plans and get others’ opinions and ideas whenever it is possible to do so. Had the executive in the example above discussed the appointment with his staff or colleagues, he wouldn't have embarrassed himself in front of his boss. Even if you decide to promote someone whom others don't recommend, at least you'll know the potential pitfalls of your appointment. You'll learn more about what others think and know regarding the various candidates you are considering.

Once you have made a promotion, your work is not done. You are responsible for what happens next—and there is always “care and feeding” involved. New appointments do not automatically hit the ground running. It's best to prepare the way as much as possible, including thorough training. Sure, you can leave it to the newly promoted employee to work it out by himself or herself. If you've chosen correctly, the individual will know what he or she needs help with or where additional training would be useful. But why wait? There is much you know already that the new appointee probably does not. Unless letting the individual struggle is part of his or her development, why do it? You want your new promotee to be successful and make you look good, don't you?

Without doing everything for the promoted employee, do everything possible to ensure his or her success. As a retired CEO once cautioned his successor about a group of recently promoted vice presidents, “Don't you let them fail!”