Build Flexibility into Your Plans

I have always subscribed to the belief that experience is the best teacher. In fact, many of the most important lessons I have learned have been from my real-world experiences. When I started my business in 1999, I got a crash course in entrepreneurship, learning a great sum in short order. The most important lesson I learned was the importance of building flexibility into my business model. I learned that ultimately, market forces will guide us to a place where our talents and skills are in demand. The challenge is to be able to listen to what the market is saying and to demonstrate the flexibility to satisfy the needs of the market. It was a lesson that I learned the hard way and none too soon. Recently, this dynamic played itself out with a new client. More about that shortly, but first a little background.
After graduating from college, I went to work for a Billion Dollar Conglomerate, first as a financial analyst, then later I moved into strategic planning for the retail group. My job was to help the division presidents craft their business plans, and then help my boss, the group president, monitor their progress against key metrics. Part of my responsibility was evaluating capital project requests submitted by those divisions. In that role, I watched division executives build their businesses by working their plans as drafted, and also by responding to opportunities that presented themselves along the way. At first, many of these opportunities did not seem to fit their business models, which raised serious questions for me. But, upon closer scrutiny, when evaluated in context with the capabilities of the division and the over-arching mission for the brand, they made perfect sense and resulted in new growth. With this in mind, I began to work with the division presidents to draft plans that addressed opportunistic investments. In other words, I learned to be aware of signals the market is sending to serve unmet needs.
When I began my executive search business, I partnered with an established retained search firm. As you may know, retained search firms get an upfront fee to begin the search, one-third of the fee after candidate presentation, and the final fee when the assignment is complete. Contingency search firms only get paid if their candidate is hired. I turned down a lot of contingency assignments to stay true to my business model. That was a big mistake. If I had paid attention to what the market was trying to tell me, I would have taken many of those contingency assignments. Had I done so, I would have developed more clients sooner and had a much better cash flow. Eventually I did catch on and my business thrived. That is how I learned to listen to the market and be flexible. Recently, that lesson played out again for me.
Last year, a long-time CEO friend contacted me to say that he was moving his company to Atlanta and needed my help. He is not well connected in the area so he reached out to me. In order to build on our relationship, I connected him with people who I knew could be helpful: attorneys, commercial leasing professionals, accountants and others. Ultimately this is what I do, connect people.
Last fall, my friend and I got together for lunch to catch up on his progress. Almost immediately, he told me that his CFO was looking for a director of human resources but he was not making progress. They had discussed using a recruiter and planned to call me the following week to initiate the search. It was welcomed news, but not really a surprise. I knew it was just a matter of time before their staffing needs would require my services. The following week, my CEO friend, his CFO and I met for another lunch to close the deal. In the process they told me of an internal candidate who they thought could do the job. This guy is currently in a supervisory position in operations, managing six restaurants. They wanted to know how I would assess his capabilities among my other candidates and how that might affect my fee if they decided to offer him the job. This is really not an unusual question, so I took it in stride, explaining my process. When we left the restaurant, I had instructions to prepare the necessary documents to initiate the search. We had a deal.
After a few days, the CFO and I talked again. He told me that after further consideration they thought their internal candidate may be the best candidate for the job after all. They were not certain, however, and asked if I would be willing to evaluate him up front before considering other candidates. They offered to pay me a third of my fee for this evaluation, to be applied to my full search fee if they decided not to promote this candidate. At first, I was disappointed that I would not be conducting a search for my full fee. The more I thought about it, I came to realize that this was a win-win opportunity. It may not have been my usual model, but it was within my capabilities and did not require much of my time. I heard that familiar little voice telling me to heed the message from the market and go with the flow. That was indeed a good decision. I accepted the project and we scheduled a meeting with the internal candidate. In the interest of privacy, let’s call him David.
While preparing for our meeting, I poured over David’s resume. He had a lot of valuable operations experience with some very good companies, including prior experience working for my clients. Additionally, he had held director-level human resources positions before focusing on training and development. Clearly, David is not a human resources generalist, but operations is largely about managing human resources on the front lines, and he had worked in a human resources department. I was beginning to have a good feeling about this candidate. Fundamentally, there are three questions that must be answered in the affirmative before a client will hire one of my candidates. Can he do the job? Will he do the job? Is he a fit for the client’s culture? I knew that he would have the support of management so he could likely do the job. Based on his prior experience with the management and their consideration of him for this job, I was confident that fit was not an issue either. So, I was left with the question of “Will he do the job?” More importantly, I was curious as to why he wanted this job. That became my focus.
I found David to be very engaging, a people person. It was clear that he had a passion for the restaurant industry and the ambition to be a greater part of the decision-making process at a strategic level. I discovered that he was frustrated in his current career path and was looking for another alternative that would contribute to his growth and advancement. He viewed the director of human resources position as a viable alternative. That made sense to me. By moving in this direction he could fulfill his ambition to work closer to the strategic level while staying close to his passion. David was smart to build flexibility into his career and pursuing an option for continued growth and development. The market was telling him that his capabilities were needed in a different place. He got the message. You should too.