When searching for leaders, insiders shouldn't delegate key tasks

"The most important thing we do is hire!" was a lesson from the chairman who hired me 50 years ago at Williams College. He was talking about building and maintaining an economics department, but I soon learned that it was always critical. His conviction was that if we hired well, and then mentored well, the teaching and advising and sustaining a vital department would take care of itself.

In those 50 years I've done a lot of hiring. I've been in searches as a candidate, run searches for senior administrative positions reporting to me, been part of search processes for presidents at other colleges, and have been called as a reference for countless searches where colleagues were candidates for a position.

I've responded to inquiries about my availability for positions, and watched and participated in searches that were done with, and without, search firms.

In light of the current dust-ups involving the athletic director at the University of Minnesota and the search for a superintendent for Minneapolis Public Schools, I offer the following observations.

If one uses a search firm, be sure the firm, and the individual who is leading the search from that firm, understands that this is your search, not the firm's. The firm generally likes to be in charge. It is not; the search committee, and especially its chair, is in charge. The committee should demand a change if the firm doesn't want to play by that important rule.

Search firms are businesses. They have other clients, now and in the future. They have proprietary information about candidates and institutions. They have a business to protect. Their interests and yours may not always align. That's one of the main reasons why the search committee, and especially its chair, must be in charge.

In my experience, the person you really want generally isn't looking for a job. You (and the firm) have to seek such people out. The people who apply in response to an ad often are not the ones you will want. "Search" means …. search! Building the pool of candidates is certainly the most important initial task for the committee.

If it was from the chair of the search committee, or, better yet, the chair of the board who made the first call, you bet I would listen. Establish the rules on initial contacts early on. (In several cases when I was searching, I cold-called people who were recommended highly by people we respected. While I didn't always get them to take the job, I almost always got them into the pool.)

Firms, especially larger ones, often employ young people to make reference checks. I tried (I hope successfully) to be polite to some 23-year-old who called to ask about someone who was applying for a senior position. When the conversation started "Hi, Steve" (my grandson is his or her age), I'm checking references for …" I knew it would be a relatively polite but short conversation. In no way would I talk about anything seriously confidential with an inexperienced person. Getting a reference call from a member, or the chair, of the search committee called forth a completely different level of candor. And it is clear from recent local experience that candor is always needed.

One can never make too many reference calls, and one can never spend too much time with the serious candidates.

Leadership appointments should have an expectation of at least five years (even if contract terms are shorter), since one spends at least the first year figuring out the institution or organization to which one is coming. The more calls, the more conversations (including on his or her own turf), the better — as Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a lot by watching."

Finally, search committees both recommend someone to hire and must "sell" the organization so the right person will accept the job if offered. Both tasks are equally important.

But the buck stops with the person, or the board, that has to make the ultimate choice. I've found the observations above to be helpful, both in avoiding mistakes, and finding great people, and they are offered in that spirit.

Good luck to those now in "search mode."