4 Evaluating Internal Coaching Candidates
Along with being your company’s CEO, you may get to have another great job. You may get to be the coach for your company’s next CEO! Even if you hire an external coach to help out, you can and should be involved and help ensure the success of the coaching process.
Being a CEO Coach
I have spent more than thirty years coaching executives—and I love it! There is no reason that you shouldn’t enjoy your role as the coach for a future CEO as much as I do. Given your experience as a CEO and your unique perspective on the company, I also believe that, in many ways, you can be an even more effective coach for your successor than I can.
Let me share the highlights of what I have learned about behavioral coaching with you—and then talk about how you can apply my coaching process in coaching your successor.
In my work as a coach, I don’t get paid if my clients don’t achieve positive, lasting change in behavior. This positive change is not determined by me or my clients; it is determined by the key stakeholders that surround my clients. Although I usually get paid, I sometimes fail. I will share what I have learned from both my successes and my failures: a wise person learns from their mistakes—a much wiser person learns from someone else’s mistakes.
My suggestions will only focus on helping your successor achieve positive change in behavior. I can’t help you with strategic, technical, or functional coaching. In any case, at the potential CEO level, the huge majority of requests for coaching are behavioral. Candidates who lack strategic, technical, or functional skills are generally out of the running before immediate CEO succession is even discussed.
In almost every case, there are certain behaviors that, if your successor changes, will positively impact his chance of becoming a great CEO. If your successor is human, he is being considered for this job because of doing many things right. He is probably also being considered for the role in spite of some behaviors that need to change. My next few sections will give you a plan for dealing with these in-spiteof behaviors.
I will also discuss the relationship of your successor with key stakeholders. As we discussed earlier, CEO transition is a very personal process. It is not just personal for you and your successor; it is also personal for her key stakeholders. As a coach, your goal should be to make her as effective as possible in dealing with them—and them as effective as possible in dealing with her.
Your time is valuable, and the succession decision is critical for you and your company. Let’s begin with three qualifying questions to determine if behavioral coaching may be useful in the development of your successor.
Do You Really Want Him to Be the Next CEO?
I learned a great lesson on a CEO succession-coaching assignment where I did get paid—but ended up wishing that I hadn’t taken the job.
A major CEO asked me to coach his CFO—and potential successor. After a few minutes I had the distinct feeling that the CEO just didn’t like the CFO—and didn’t really want him to get the job.
“I don’t think that you like this guy,” I said to the CEO.
“He may not be my favorite person, but I guess that I like him OK.” The CEO’s reply didn’t come with a great deal of conviction.
“Look, it’s just you and me talking here. There is no reason to play games with me,” I challenged. “I don’t think you like the CFO. If you really don’t want him to get this job, why are we even having this conversation? I don’t even know this guy. I don’t care if he becomes the CEO or not. Why would you want me to coach him—or to work on developing him as your successor—if you really don’t want him to have the job?”
“You are right!” he grunted. “I don’t like this guy. I think that he is kind of a jerk. I have never liked him very much—even though I’ve tried.”
“Then why are we having this conversation?” I asked.
He replied, “I don’t like him much, but I have to admit, he has made a tremendous contribution in helping our company. We have done a fantastic turnaround—and without him it would have been impossible. If your coaching process can really help him improve his interpersonal skills, he deserves to be the CEO of the company.”
“Are you sure?” I enquired skeptically.
“I think so—no, I am positive,” he replied.
When I heard, “I think so,” my gut said, “Leave now!” Unfortunately, I didn’t.
“If he makes great improvement in the interpersonal areas that we discussed, are you going to recommend him to be your successor?” I asked. “Are there any other reasons he may not get the job, such as a lack of technical or functional skills?”
“No, along with being great in finance, he is strong enough in all of the other functions to do a fine job as the chief executive,” the CEO concluded. “His only issues revolve around interpersonal behavior.”
I worked with the CFO for more than a year. At the end of my assignment, he was seen as making great improvements in all his targeted areas for interpersonal change—by fifteen out of sixteen raters. Only one person saw “no change.” Guess who that was? The CEO.
After the CFO confronted the CEO with his obvious improvement in interpersonal relationships, the CEO still did not recommend him for the job. While the CEO reluctantly admitted that the CFO had made great improvement in interpersonal behavior—which was clearly documented and hard to dispute—he now concluded that the CFO lacked “adequate marketing skills.” This was the same CEO who had told me the CFO’s marketing skills were just fine one year earlier.
Needless to say, the CFO was incensed. He pointed out that he had been assured that he would get the “big job” if he improved his interpersonal skills. He mentioned that he had turned down other, lucrative offers since he had assumed he would get the CEO position. He went to the board, pointed out what happened, and basically said, “Either make me the new CEO—or write me an extremely large check.”
He was paid off by the board—which cost the company millions of dollars. Since he had clearly improved, I was paid for my work as his coach. I still wished that I hadn’t taken the assignment. In hindsight, I feel that I was used as a pawn in a political game. The CEO believed that the CFO would not improve, and then he could say, “Well, we tried to help him. We got him the best coach we could find. He still didn’t improve; therefore, he is not ready for the job.”
When the CFO did improve, the CEO had to play the embarrassing “lacks marketing skills” card. My work—and the CFO’s great effort—ended up costing the company lots of money. At least the CFO was grateful to me—and felt he could use what he had learned in our work together in future roles.
Since that event, I have had other experiences that have reinforced my belief that if you, as the CEO, really don’t want a potential successor to get the job, you aren’t going to be helpful in coaching.
What is the learning point from this story for you, as a CEO? Look in the mirror. If you really don’t want your potential successor to get the job, don’t kid yourself. There is a very strong probability that this person will never get the job. You will just look for problems until you find a reason to disqualify him.
Don’t jerk around potential successors. This is not fair to them or to the company. If, in your heart, you don’t want the person to be your successor, don’t pretend to be interested in developing him for the job. Just work with someone you can support. If you cannot find a successor who you can sincerely support, go to the outside immediately and start recruiting some new talent!
Will She Be Given a Fair Chance by Her Key Stakeholders?
You may personally believe that a potential successor is perfect for the job, and you may do a great job in coaching her so that she is ready for the job, but if the board decides not to hire her, it won’t matter. When you are coaching your potential successor, it is critical that she establish positive board relationships before the succession decision is made.
One of my potential CEO clients lost it in one meeting with the board, got angry, tried to prove a board member was wrong, and succeeded in alienating several important people on the board. This type of damage is hard to repair. A year later, when I interviewed board members about this candidate, a couple of board members brought up this event. Even though the candidate’s behavior had been stellar for the past year, the event was stuck in their minds and was seen as symbolic of the negative behavior of this executive.
It is important for you, as a coach, to thoroughly prepare your successor for board meetings. It can be useful to have detailed discussions about the preferences, views, and quirks of each board member.
In other cases, a potential successor may have fine relationships with the board, but be sabotaged by peers. In one of my “failure” coaching experiences, I tried to explain to peers how my job was to help a candidate achieve positive, lasting change in behavior—not only to improve his effectiveness in his current position, but to help him prepare for a potential promotion. It was clear that the peer group basically hated this person and had no desire to help him get promoted. In fact, a few made it clear that they would be much happier if they could help him get fired!
This person was eventually removed from serious consideration for the role of CEO. It became clear to the existing CEO and the board that he had been written off by many important peers and was never going to be given a fair opportunity by them—no matter what he did or how hard he tried.
My final example of a stakeholder veto comes from a chief executive of the company’s leading customer. In this case, the CEO of the customer’s organization felt that, years before, he had been insulted by the potential successor, who was, at the time, in a sales role. Although this event had happened years before, the customer CEO had never forgiven this candidate and still considered him to be a total jerk. The customer CEO also happened to be friends with a couple of members of the board. Although this candidate may well have been qualified for the job—and had the support of his CEO and peers—he was not even considered for the position. Big customers count!
Before spending your time developing your successor, make a critical stakeholder assessment. Ask an important question: “Will this candidate be given a fair chance, not only by me, but also by the key stakeholders who are critical to her future success?”
If this answer is no—and if you cannot change key stakeholder perceptions—look for another candidate. When critical stakeholders have written off candidates, their succession possibilities may be over—no matter what you, or they, do to change behavior.
If it eventually becomes obvious that board members or other key stakeholders have vetoed your favorite candidate—and that she is not going to get the job—your path is simple—start over! You, as the CEO, will need to let go of your disappointment and do your best to support another potential candidate who can be approved by the board.
Is He Willing to Make an Authentic Effort to Change?
The hardest lesson that I have learned as a coach is that none of my clients are going to get better because of me. My efforts to “save” people who had no interest in changing have all been a complete waste of time. I hate to tell you this, but—as hard as it may be for you, as the CEO, to hear it—your successor is not going to achieve positive, lasting change because you are a great coach. If he is going to achieve positive change, the deep motivation for this change will have to come from inside him.
(As an aside, this learning is not only important at work. It is even important at home. Have you ever attempted to change the behavior of a spouse, partner, parent, or significant other who had no interest in changing? How well did that work for you? One of the classic problems of retired chief executives is that they become bored and engage in misguided efforts to “manage” or “coach” their friends and family members! Let me help you. This is a disaster!)
After performing a careful analysis of existing and desired leadership behavior, you and he will need to determine what changes are needed to help him take it to the next level, become a great CEO, and have effective relationships with his key stakeholders.
One of the greatest frustrations that I hear from CEOs in describing potential successors is, “If he only made this one change, he could become so much more effective. I have told him this over and over. Why doesn’t he just do it?”
As Arnold Schwarzenegger so wisely noted, “Nobody ever got muscles by watching me lift weights.”
You can help your successor achieve authentic change. You cannot make your successor achieve authentic change.
Assuming that your successor can benefit from changing behavior, you will first need to decide if this behavioral change is a “game-breaker.” In other words, if the change does occur, he should be your successor; if it doesn’t, he shouldn’t. You will then need to make a judgment call.
Does he really want to change because he believes that this is the right thing to do for both him and the company—or is he only going through the motions because he wants to be the next CEO?
In my own coaching with potential chief executives, I am clear that I only want to work with them if they believe changed leadership behavior is the right thing to do for them, their team members, and their companies. If I believe that they are only interested in changing to get ahead, I refuse to work with them.
If you believe that the change is vitally important, and you believe that your successor is only going through the motions—as painful as it may be—find another successor. If he is just faking it to become a CEO, what will happen when he gets promoted and is the CEO? His dysfunctional behavior will not only return—it may become even worse.
If he needs to achieve positive change in behavior, and if he is sincerely willing to try, you can definitely help him get better—if he will be given a fair chance not only by you, but by other key stakeholders.