• Introduction: Board Preparation
• Vision, Strengths And Challenges
• Why Create Evaluation Processes?
• The Search Committee And Its Chair
• Outreach
• Screening Applications
• Interviews
• References
• The Next Phase Of The Transition

Introduction: Board Preparation

An executive transition is an opportunity for a nonprofit organization regardless of the reason that its executive director is leaving and regardless of how long he or she has been there. It is an opportunity to strengthen the board's leadership abilities, to build a vision for the future, to use the vision as a marketing tool to attract great candidates and to build community with staff and funders in the process.

Hiring an executive director is one of the board’s most important duties and opportunities, a unique time in an organization when the board has a key role and can make a distinct contribution to organization's future success. By thinking strategically and consciously linking vision with the search for a new executive director the board provides a solid foundation for the transition process, develops its leadership capacities and makes the organization more attractive to candidates. The opposite approach -- responding to anxiety and the urge to hurry -- can result in a less satisfactory result or in a costly mistake.

Vision, Strengths And Challenges

When an organization creates its vision for the future, it more clearly understands both its strengths and its challenges. The strengths can be used to attract talented candidates. The challenges will influence the way a board thinks about the skills needed in the new executive director. It is an opportunity to say: “This is what we do well (and why you should join us) and this is where we need your help”. When a potential candidate sees the goals and challenges, he or she understands that there is a real leadership role -- which a strong candidate will find attractive.

A clearer understanding of the challenges also enables the board to see where it might be more helpful, an opportunity to develop its leadership capacities. Eliminating or reducing some challenges and beginning to work on others will strengthen the organization and again, increase the attractiveness of the executive director’s role as recruiting begins.

Why Create Evaluation Processes?

The single most important thing that boards can do for their organizations and to support their executive directors is to establish clear goals and a way to evaluate the effectiveness of the boards and the executive directors. Many organizations have not yet established evaluation processes and many are wary because evaluations are too often used only when there is a problem.

The leadership transition offers an opportunity to develop an evaluation process that is constructive and flows easily from the work already being done. As the board thinks about challenges it is a natural step to develop annual goals and annual goals lead naturally to an evaluation process. The board can develop its goals and then its evaluation process and be ready when candidates ask.

The Search Committee And Its Chair

Selecting the chair of the search committee is an early and visible decision at a time when people in the organization are naturally anxious. When the chair is someone who is wise and respected in the community, this provides an early indication of how the search will proceed and will increase confidence in the process. A well-rounded search committee provides what is too often a rare opportunity to have meaningful dialogues across constituencies.

Being a good search committee member requires wisdom and being a good listener who is open to learning. Committee members need to commit to confidentiality, during and after the process, and to being present at all meetings. Without a schedule, set in advance, a wonderful candidate may accept another offer while the search committee is trying to find a date when everyone can meet.

Outreach

A comprehensive plan for outreach includes advertisements, announcements and networking. The ads, the announcement and networking calls will describe both the strengths and the challenges. The goal is to attract strong candidates who are drawn to the mission and have the ability to lead the organization in accomplishing its vision and goals. Minimizing the challenges may result in more candidates but fewer who are prepared to do the hard work.

Active telephone networking has several advantages. It provides an opportunity to describe the nonprofit well and to have a dialogue with a source or candidate. Networking can also assure that there will be a strong, talented and diverse group of candidates.

Screening Applications

An important discussion within the search committee is to establish minimum requirements and a “wish list” for other experience. Establishing minimum criteria carefully will help a committee assure that any candidate is fairly evaluated. It is important to remember that requirements that are too narrow may unnecessarily limit the number of strong candidates. Flexibility, where possible, could provide excellent people whose background the committee could not visualize at the start of the search process.

The minimum requirements make the initial review of applications easier. Preliminary telephone interviews and references with qualified candidates help the search committee understand the person better, answer any questions and assure that there is mutual interest before an interview with the full committee.

Interviews

The search committee will create questions to ask each person interviewed. The “job description” with its stated goals is a good basis for developing questions. Asking about the candidate’s actual experience always reveals more than “what if” questions. “What if” questions test the person’s ability to think quickly, to interview well and to guess at what the committee wants to hear.

Providing time for candidates to ask questions of the committee can be informative about how the candidate prepared for the interview and what he or she feels is important. After each interview the search committee will want to debrief in a way that assures that each person expresses his or her perspective.

References

References are critical because they help the search committee and the board continue their learning. Preparing the questions ahead of time will assure that the right questions are asked and answered about each candidate equally. Speaking to people a candidate reports to, people he or she supervises and her or his peers will provide a well-rounded view.

Written references are less informative than telephone reference interviews. Asking the candidate’s permission to call anyone who knows his or her professional work assures the board that it has a complete and accurate understanding of each finalist. This decision is too important to get wrong.

The Next Phase Of The Executive Transition Process

Once the board has reached its decision and the candidate of its choice accepts the offer, it is natural to breathe a sigh of relief – but the next phase of the process is just beginning. A little more thought and work will build on what has been a successful process and make the next phase of the transition just as successful.

First impressions are critical and mistakes are hard to overcome later. Making sure that the new executive director understands special traditions, unique parts of the organization’s culture and the power structure is important to a successful beginning.

Conclusion

An executive transition process includes every facet of the organization and a well-conceived process creates new energy, making the transition a logical time to begin strengthening the board, solving problems and creating a vision for the future. Every improvement will help to attract stronger candidates and obviously, every improvement will also benefit the organization.

Thoughts from The Art of Hiring Leaders: A Guide for Nonprofit Organizations, available here.