Hiring the management team is a complex process, often not taken seriously or solved by hiring ‘a person of trust’ with no suitable skillset or mindset. Being as crucial as it is, it often leads to dissatisfaction, frustration, quiet quitting, and even mass destruction. Then, we, the Executive recruiters, receive the call with the directive to hire a manager whom the company thinks they need, and in the whole process, the only one included is the CEO.

We have two possible scenarios in that game – either the CEO takes someone similar to them, and we have no further progress or company growth whatsoever, or they take someone who has enough self-sales skills to make sure they convince the hiring CEO they have something he/she doesn’t know about, but it will make the difference. A bonus in both scenarios is that employees are fully distressed from the new person who’ll be their boss, for whom they don’t know anything about except the rumours from the market, whose role is still unclear, and who’ll dictate their relationship. And we have only one result in both scenarios – failure.

So, if you are in an early stage in your company development, or you’ve been through failure in hiring your management team, and you want to start fresh, here are my 2 cents packed as a guideline:

1. Start with analyses. You’ve realised your company needs more, and that more can be solved by a good manager in that field. What would a successful manager mean for your company? What skills does your current management team lack? How would this role contribute to the company?
   
   
2. Discuss this need with the current management team. Let them be fully involved. They will be working alongside their peers to develop the company strategy and tactics. Give them the right (and responsibility) to define what the company needs, in order to progress
   
   
3. Make a short, non-formal focus group with the employees. Understand what made them frustrated with the prior managers. Understand what would inspire them. What would make them grow? Provide them the feeling of belonging as an extra benefit.
   
   
4. Define the role and begin the search, whether with external support or not. But before that, communicate with the management team and the relevant team that the search will happen. Manage the expectations.
   
   
5. The initial interview goes with you, the CEO. In the next interview, include one peer manager and at least one team member who will be managed by this person. Train them in doing interviews. Please clarify the expectations for them in that process. Let them understand that interviewing is a two-way street – besides interrogators, they are also company ambassadors.
   
   
6. Collect all feedback, let yourself get out from the bias, breath, digest, follow your intuition and make the decision. You knew in the first 30 seconds who’s the right person. If the team shares that opinion, you've identified the winner.

And finally, reach out for help if you need it. Not all of us are trained in interviewing, and not all of us are comfortable with it, but trust me, it’s the most intuitive process you can do. The only thing you need to have is clear expectations, respect for every person who gets involved, the bravery to follow your intuition and the willingness to let people surprise you for good.

You will then enjoy the process of hiring as much as I do.