This article describes some of the reasons executives may not succeed then provides a roadmap that in-house executive recruiting teams can use to build capability within their organization and increase the likelihood of executive success.

1. Copyright © 2017 American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration: HR Pulse. All rights reserved.
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By Russell Podgorski and Deirdre Alynn Sherwood Podgorski
Manuscript submitted and approved for publication in the American Society for
Healthcare Human Resources Administration: HR Pulse, September of 2017.
Today’s business environment is increasingly competitive, complex, and dynamic. A
company’s success is dependent upon the quality of its leadership. Great organizations are
differentiated because they have high-performing executive talent who drive value into their
organizations and bring millions of dollars in revenues to the bottom line (Zaccaro, 2010).
As talent acquisition and process improvement leaders in Fortune 500 companies, we
have experienced recruiting success and failure first hand. We have also learned much from
bright people including industry experts, researchers and colleagues across varied industries
with experience working in large matrix environments.
This article describes some of the reasons executives may not succeed then provides a
roadmap that in-house executive recruiting teams can use to build capability within their
organization and increase the likelihood of executive success.
Executive Leadership Retention
What’s troubling is that executive turnover is much higher than before. According to the
Executive Search Information Exchange (ESIX), which is the largest in-house executive
recruiting consortium in the world, the executive turnover rate is estimated to be as high as 40
percent in many instances (Mullins, 2016). A research study conducted by Mercer estimates the
overall loss of a single executive to be more than $500K or 2.5 times an executive’s salary
(Waterfall, 2009). Some of the primary reasons for high executive turnover rates include:
 Not leveraging best practices, standardized processes, and appropriate resources to
manage the entire executive search process can lead to hiring the wrong talent.
Companies that have struggled in many cases follow random unreliable processes and
rely on their instincts to make hiring decisions and manage the search.
 Poor interviewing and selection impacts the executive’s ability to fit culturally and partner
with peers to accomplish objectives. There’s research suggesting bad selection
decisions occur up to 70 percent of the time (Zaccaro, 2010).
 Organizations ignore the importance of the newly hired executive’s first twelve months
by not developing and implementing a robust assimilation/on-boarding plan.
The Pathway to Success
Providence Health & Services, like many others, experienced challenges in attracting
and retaining top executive talent. Candidates and hiring executives experienced
inconsistencies in the recruiting processes as well as executive outcomes. Agency costs and
time to fill were very high. A change was needed. We chose to call upon Lean and other
process redesign methodologies to revolutionize our corporate executive recruiting practice into
a highly functioning team that exceeds executive recruiting benchmarks across the globe.
Executive Recruiting
Building Capability & Achieving Success

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Scope the project and develop a charter. As an initial step, we obtained support from an
executive sponsor in the business who provided preliminary feedback from several hiring
executives. We learned that the end-to-end executive search process was inconsistent and not
always effective. A variety of search firms were used and not managed. There were extended
cycle times and a general lack of trust for the recruitment function that led hiring executives to
use external search firms heavily. Our goal for the project included developing and
implementing a scalable, consistent, and value-added executive search process across the
organization that would (1) reduce search firm costs, (2) decrease hiring cycle times, (3) equip
executives to make better hiring decisions, (4) enhance customer and stakeholder satisfaction
and (5) improve quality of hire.
Make the business case. To make the business case, we gathered information on cost, quality
and cycle time. Through a cost-benefit analysis, we discovered the entire organization was
spending approximately $7M unnecessarily each year in search fees. The benchmark data
suggested cost savings of $750K annually per executive recruiter would be realized if the
recruiter placed 25 executives in a year. We also noticed an uptick in higher executive attrition
(quality of hire) within 12 months (7 to 10 percent) and learned that overall time to fill averaged
about 140 days compared to the ESIX benchmark of 100 days (Mullins, 2016).
Obtain benchmarks and best practices. We obtained benchmark and best practice data by
identifying Fortune 500 organizations like ours with high performing corporate executive
recruiting teams. We included external retained search firms in the exercise as well. It was no
surprise to learn that successful companies managed a consistent, but flexible executive
recruiting process when searches were handled by the internal team or outsourced to an
external search firm. We also reviewed standard executive search processes, flow charts, tools,
and templates through benchmarking companies. We aggregated and analyzed all of the
information and then used it in the future state executive recruiting process redesign.
Gather Voice of the Customer (VOC) feedback. Customer satisfaction is very important, and
thus we conducted ongoing surveys of hiring executives and candidates to ensure the future
state solution would meet their expectations. Figure 1 contains a sample set of the VOC
feedback received from customer and stakeholder surveys.
Figure 1. Voice of the Customer (feedback from hiring executives & candidates)
1. Provide an executive search process that is standardized, more predictable and
consistent that mirrors service received from external executive search firms
2. Serve as consultative trusted advisors who have a deep understanding of the culture
and business units of the company
3. Reduce the time to fill without sacrificing candidate quality
4. Deliver high performing mission-aligned candidates
5. Network and build relationships with executives nationally for future opportunities
6. Decrease the reliance on using executive search firms and reduce the placement
costs (~$150K per outside search firm search).

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Understand the current state process. It was important to interview the executive recruiters
to map out each individual process on a flow chart. We highlighted areas on each flow chart
where the recruiter admitted being inconsistent. After the interviews were completed, it was
clear there were variations, bottlenecks, unnecessary steps, and redundancies. As an example,
some recruiters had 30 steps in their process while others had around 75 steps.
Identify waste, process inconsistencies and non-value added steps. We brought the
executive recruiters together for in-person meetings to review and discuss the current state
process maps. Prior to the meeting, we analyzed the consistencies, inconsistencies, non-value
and value-added activities and waste in the process. That data was used to conduct a root
cause analysis for negative customer perceptions and variation in the recruitment process. We
identified solutions as a team and then prioritized them with a cost vs. impact analysis.
Map out a value-added future state process. We took all of our gathered information and
brainstormed solutions to create a value-added executive search process flow chart that would
be used across the enterprise. We eliminated a lot of variation and unnecessary process steps.
We frequently asked each other if the customer would value the steps or not. At the end of the
exercise, we had successfully defined a streamlined end-to-end executive search process with
about 50 process steps, a targeted timeline, and five major milestones. We validated the future
state solution with the executive sponsor and other key stakeholders in the business. The
milestones of the resulting future state executive search process include (1) understand the
position and build a specification, (2) identify and assess talent, (3) facilitate interviews and
guide stakeholders through the process, (4) guide the hiring executive and search committees
through the selection process, and (5) ensure a smooth transition and immersion for the hired
executive by building an assimilation plan and following up regularly.
Establish key performance indicators. In order to know if the changes would result in
improvements, we found that we needed to define a set of performance indicators. We decided
to measure 1) search firm cost savings, 2) hiring executive and candidate customer satisfaction,
3) time to fill, and 4) attrition rates within 12 months to assess quality of hire. In order to hold
ourselves accountable and brand our successes, we started publishing a scorecard each month
that we sent to human resource leadership and senior executives. We included comparative
data to nationwide benchmarks as well as external search firm’s hiring results in order to
encourage the use of our services throughout the organization.
Document the new process. We used the future state process map to outline a detailed and
adaptable playbook that contained step by step instructions with links to resource tools,
templates, checklists, and tips to cover each major phase and activity of the executive search
process. A portion of the playbook (Figure 2) is provided for illustrative purposes. The Playbook
contains links to related tools, templates, documents, and other helpful resources.

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Figure 2. Executive Recruiting Playbook
The playbook was
developed and
standardized because
many key tasks, goals,
and processes are
repeated, but vary in
magnitude and scope
depending upon the
politics and nuances of
each search. It served as
the compass for the
team members which the
customers appreciated
as it created more
process consistency and
predictable results.
Define an implementation plan and deploy the changes. We developed an implementation
plan prior to launch which helped drive accountability on the team. The plan included actions,
deliverables, and due dates. Actions included forms template definition and review with the
team, software improvements and training, measurement reporting process definition, and
definition of recruiter performance criteria and goals. Additionally, a huge focus of the
implementation plan was stakeholder communication. We trained the team and equipped them
with talking points about how the change would positively impact customers. In support of the
focus on communication, recruiter performance goals included requirements to cultivate
relationships with candidates and hiring executives.
Encourage continuous improvements. After the implementation, we tracked our progress,
monitored results and obtained customer feedback. We also conducted retrospectives after
searches to identify things that went well vs. not so well. Because customer surveys were built
into our standardized process we were able to continually review that data and determine
improvements. Regular meetings were established with the team to review lessons learned,
best practices, improvements and customer feedback.
As part of the continuous improvement work, the team identified a very significant process
improvement that resulted in shaving off 3 weeks when trying to schedule interviews. The
improvement was to block off interview placeholders on executive calendars 30 to 60 days in
advance to ensure adequate interview time was reserved.

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Measurements of Success Reveal World Class Performance
Figure 3. Executive Recruiting Scorecard
Three years after the new executive
search process was implemented we
realized sustained improvements
and have met and exceeded national
benchmarks. In 2016, the internal
team filled 88 positions, representing
84 percent of all executive positions
filled leaving 16 percent filled by
external search firm partners. This is
remarkable considering the results
five years ago were practically
inverted.
On average, these hires were made
in half the time relative to those filled
by external search firms, at a fraction
of the cost. We’ve projected saving
the organization approximately $5M
per year in agency fees. Additionally,
executive retention rates for the
internal team’s hires have been
much higher than those positions
filled by external search firms.
Customer satisfaction scores
continue to improve annually and
finished the year at 4.5/5.0 as
referenced in Figure 3.
We’re convinced the results and sustained process improvements had much to do with bringing
the right people together to solve problems using Lean techniques and other process
improvement concepts while keeping the voice of the customer at the center.

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Russell Podgorski is the senior manager of executive recruiting for Providence St. Joseph
Health. He can be reached via email at russell.podgorski@providence.org.
Deirdre Alynn Sherwood Podgorski is the manager of business analysis at Providence Health
Plan. She can be reached via email at deirdre.podgorski@providence.org.
Sources
Mullins, S. (2016). ESIX 2016 Benchmark Survey on Corporate Executive Recruiting. Seattle:
Executive Search Information Exchange.
Mullins, S. (2016) 40% of executive searches fail. Retrieved August 7, 2016 from
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/40-executive-searches-fail-simon-mullins.
Waterfall, C. (2009) 7 reasons CEOs fail. Retrieved August 14, 2016, from
http://www.bostonsearchgroup.com/blog/7-reasons-ceos-fail/.
Zaccaro, S. (2010) The search for executive talent. Retrieved July 1, 2016 from
https://www.shrm.org/foundation/ourwork/initiatives/resources-from-past-
initiatives/Documents/The%20Search%20for%20Exec%20Talent.pdf