SWBi International Thesis on Executive Search & Management Appraisals
1. SWBi Internationalwww.SWBi.com
Global Executive Search - High Tech
(781) 237-1199
"25 Years Recruiting the Leadership you can Invest in !"
Working With SWBi
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to
help another without helping himself.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
OUR GOAL, IN WHATEVER ROLE WE HAVE, is to be your trusted advisor, mentor and coach — your
advocate. We don’t enter any business relationship casually. Whether we are exploring a role as
advisor, investor, board member, negotiator, mediator, or deal-maker we first spend time getting
to know each other.
Before we decide to recruit for Board of Director, Head of the Nominating Committee, PE/VC
firm and CEOs or invest or enter another form of business relationship, we will meet with an
entrepreneur multiple times. In these meetings: We read your business plan and review your
business strategy - We discuss your personal goals in launching a venture - We talk to people
who have worked with you in the past - We probe a variety of issues facing you and your
business. We offer you the same opportunity to get to know us. Only then do we jointly decide
whether to proceed.
Once a formal relationship is established, we are always willing to talk, to explore your business
issues, to help evaluate your business strategy, and to help identify critical strategic and
managerial issues confronting you and your company. We serve as your advocate and help you
achieve your business and personal goals as an entrepreneur. We are ―on call‖ virtually 24X7.
SWBi International offer support in the identification, strategic deployment, and development of
senior executive leaders. This specialization in assessing, and recruiting senior executive leaders
who will create competitive advantage and attain sustainable value aka sometimes represented by
market capitalization. SWBi International track record of over 1,000 assignments has been
developed on our insights and recommendations into the right executive dynamics for each and
every senior executive search engagement. We have proven the ability to understand many
different clients and to identify the right selection of candidates and to complete a win:win
outcome time and time again across the world. Gaining an appreciation for Client Company’s
requirements/vision while retaining the ethical and professional empathy for each and every
candidate.
SWBi International Managing Directors deliver Senior Executive Recruiting SER™ services;
ranging from Senior Executive Search to other solutions that enhance board of director and the
C/VP Executive Effectiveness. SER™ is a solution that allows SWBi International to partner
with clients so as to offer solutions that link senior executive leadership with the organizations
strategy and tactical execution.
SWBi has lead and executed over 1,000 such senior executive search engagements acrossNorth
America for almost 30 years. In addition to SWBi traditional senior executive search
2. engagements we provide management appraisals SWBi Mgt App 4.0™and SWBi SRS™ a
solution that has been specifically development for in house recruiting professionals (aimed to
avoid duplication and leverage internal resources to attract an incrementally superior candidate).
Is your leadership development cost-effective? Do you have tailored plans for developing your
future leaders? Are you developing the right people?
Over half of Global Leaders surveyed stated that a lack of leadership was a major factor
constraining their ability to deal with change, and over 50 percent viewed succession planning as
a pressing challenge. They, and other companies, see developing leadership talent as a key aspect
of talent management, but often find people are not ready when senior posts need to be filled.
Typically this is because development has been unfocused, or has addressed symptoms rather
than root causes. Development plans frequently are unrealistic, superficial (―get a coach‖, ―take a
course‖), and fail to take a comprehensive, holistic approach to professional development.
Making sure your leaders develop and deliver
SWBi International’s Managing Directors know what excellence looks like be it a board of
director, CEO, President, CFO, VP Sales, VP Marketing VP Engineering etc. We can work with
you to develop and implement specific, achievable plans to ensure that your leaders are capable
of meeting current performance requirements, and are ready to assume the future roles for which
they have been targeted.
Defining tailored development plans
We offer a highly focused, custom-made, holistic approach that links development to business
strategy and the executive’s own profile. It includes:
A thorough and complete management appraisal of executive’s strengths and
development needs, that defines specific areas for change
Focused interventions with your leaders to set out clearly how they should capitalize
on their strengths and address the underlying causes of their development needs. The
result is a specific, realistic and resource-efficient action plan that the executive is
committed to carrying out.
Would you like a greater return on your investment in leadership development. SWBi would be
pleased to discuss leadership development with you.
Scaling Mgt Competency
Can you tell the good from the great? Can you get your people to the next level of performance?
Can you specify the skills your people need?
It is no longer enough to rate someone relative to his or her own role. Roles change and people
move far too quickly; it is necessary to compare your people to each other, to future roles, to
successors – even to the demands emerging from a shift in strategy or a merger.
3. Knowing who has real potential
We can help you with our assessment process, or help you do your own assessment better. We
can offer:
·
A rigorous appraisal against competencies relative to current or potential roles
·
Documented gaps in behavioral terms
·
Guides and tools to support scale-based assessment
·
Licensing of our competency scales, with customization and mapping against your
company’s core concepts, messages, and existing competencies
·
Customized training and consulting to support the implementation of competency scales
Are you interested in learning how we assess your executive competencies? Would you like to
compare or link your model with ours ?
Benchmarking Leaders
Are your leaders as good as the competitions? What distinguishes great leaders? What are the
skills your leaders will need?
In 30 years of assessing executive talent, SWBi International has developed an accomplished
track record for recommending the very best candidates. As you appreciate the best are the most
difficult to recruit and this is the art form of executive search not only knowing who and when to
engage but having the instinct to close the very best candidates time and time again.
Integrating Leaders into your Organization
Do you want to know how your managers compare with best-practice executives? SWBi will be
pleased to discuss benchmarking leaders with you.
Will your new leaders be successful? Can you integrate them into the organization? How can
you help them get up to speed?
Integration of newly hired senior executives into their organizations ("onboarding") is an area of
increased focus for quite a number of leading international corporations. This is a critical factor
in successful talent management. Other studies have shown that external hires are especially
vulnerable to failure during the first 12 months of their tenure.
Our experience has shown that many companies do not pay enough attention to this issue, and
neglect the potential destruction of value involved in losing a senior executive, especially an
external hire. In practice we frequently find that the gap between a new hire’s expectations and
reality is enormous.
Seizing the window of opportunity
This is especially true when major changes are necessary: an external hire, someone who can
break with tradition, may be expected to work miracles. On the other hand, the externally hired
manager can easily develop an inaccurate perception of the environment he will move into.
4. Studies show that a new leader’s first 90 days are critical to winning over the organization, and
getting the support necessary to carry out radical changes over the next six to twelve months.
Getting your new hires up to speed
SWBi International has developed a rigorous and practical onboarding methodology, which can
help integrate new leaders into their new role more effectively, leveraging our insight into the
skills and behaviors that are critical to succeed in the first three months. Through a thorough
three-month approach, we help the new hire to grow into his or her role and provide ―course
correction‖ information to manage the risk of taking on a new and challenging role. We also
provide a final summary containing a detailed analysis of the results achieved, and the next steps
to be taken.
M&A Strategic Talent Management
Companies have started making executive recruitment and development a strategic priority.
Talent management has become established as a recognized discipline. However, we have seen
that companies must align their people strategy with their corporate strategy, or risk a business
strategy failure. Companies that take the long-term strategic view will typically ask themselves a
number of far-reaching questions: Where is the company aiming to be in three, five or ten years
from now? In which main markets and fields of business will it operate in future? What do the
dynamics of growth and competition look like in those markets? And finally, is the talent
pipeline strong enough to deliver the long-term strategy? As dynamics continue to change,
executives must constantly rethink the way companies plan to attract, motivate, and retain their
employees.
Strategic Restructuring
Times of economic crisis generate a broad need for radical corporate restructuring across all
industries, involving the realignment of entire leadership structures. Successful restructuring in
these conditions requires a holistic approach involving all management levels and all functional
areas. The key requirement is a rigorous analysis to identify the management skills needed for
the future.
Succession Planning
No decision is more important than the choice of the successors to the senior leaders of an
organization. Yet despite its critical significance, and although it often takes years to develop
effective senior managers, the large number of short executive tenures and sudden departures
point to real problems in this area. Having a robust, structured succession plan ensures that your
company has a good understanding of the candidate pool internally and externally to support the
right choice for your next senior leaders, and acts as an insurance policy against unexpected
change.
SWBi International can help you identify internal candidates who are ―ready now,‖ ―ready
soon,‖ and ―ready in two years‖ and put processes in place to build up these candidate
capabilities, or select an external candidate of distinction.
5. EXECUTIVE SEARCH
ABILITY TO MAKE GOOD PEOPLE DECISIONS IS TODAYs MOST IMPORTANT
SOURCE OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES. DECISION AT THE TIME OF RECRUITING
SENIOR TALENT CAST THE LONGEST SHADOWS OF ALL.
The ability to make insightful decisions about people is today's most enduring source of
competitive advantage. SWBi International's largest service practice - Executive Search concentrates on helping clients achieve this advantage through the identification, assessment and
recruitment of the world's most talented business leaders.
On the surface, our executive search process resembles others. However, new clients usually
discover the experience of working with SWBi International to be different. An overview of
SWBi search process is described below.Our briefing meeting is the start of an emotional
commitment to complete the work with professional excellence. It begins with a rich discussion
of the critical business issues that the recruitment will address and the essential requirements of
the position. Next, our consultants qualify the behavioral characteristics that the best candidates
will require to succeed in the future role. The consultants will also review critical incidents as
well as the competencies required to successfully navigate through the situations the candidate
will most likely encounter on the job. Beyond the emotional and professional commitment,
buttressed by a proven methodology, our consultants themselves make the critical difference,
bringing genuine insight in discerning clients' needs. Their former careers give them real-life
sensitivity to many aspects of the performance requirements of the role. Importantly, the same
consultants that receive the brief handle every aspect of the search through completion.
Consultants identify candidates from three sources: their own professional networks and
relationships, those of their worldwide colleagues, and systematic research. The consultants' own
ideas will stem from their knowledge of your sector or function and their experience in executive
search. This pool of known talent is augmented by ideas flowing from other consultants within or
between offices, due to our collaborative culture and remuneration structure that encourages
cooperation. Consequently, clients engage more than individual consultants; they engage the
entire firm with all of its relevant sources and experts. Our researchers and knowledge managers
- who do not approach candidates themselves - constantly monitor career moves of business
leaders in all countries where we operate. They continuously update our global database of more
than a million senior executives.
Approaching the candidates is one of two points of maximum leverage in a search, so we never
delegate this critical activity to researchers. The consultants working on the engagement are best
prepared to present the opportunity in a compelling way, articulating the nuances of the position
and commenting meaningfully on the cultural aspects of the client organization. The consultants
will also be able to credibly address concerns candidates may have about the opportunity relative
to their own careers and their prospects within the client organization. Given the background and
seniority of our consultants, most candidates feel the people approaching them are peers in the
business world and usually value their insight and advice; the high quality of the dialogue
between our consultants and candidates greatly increases the prospect of attracting the best talent
to our client organizations. Indeed, our commitment to managing long-term candidate
relationships further strengthens this bond and enhances our access to top talent for our clients.
6. The second major point of leverage in a search is converting a mutual "fit" into an actual hiring.
In the war for talent, a skilled and insightful approach to closing a search can make the difference
between success and failure. Since our consultants invest in the relationship with candidates
through every step of the search process, they are better able to monitor and address concerns
about the job or the practical and personal aspects of transitioning as they arise, minimizing
barriers to closure at the final stage of a search. Our fixed fee approach assures objectivity on
quantitative aspects of the hiring, allowing consultants to advise both sides in the negotiations
without conflict of interest.
Scope of SWBi International’s responsibility
PinPointing your Requirements: Our briefing meeting is the start of an emotional commitment to
complete the work with professional excellence. It begins with a rich discussion of the critical
business issues that the recruitment will address and the essential requirements of the position.
Next, our consultants qualify the behavioral characteristics that the best candidates will require to
succeed in the future role. The consultants will also review critical incidents as well as the
competencies required to successfully navigate through the situations the candidate will most
likely encounter on the job. Beyond the emotional and professional commitment, buttressed by a
proven methodology, our consultants themselves make the critical difference, bringing genuine
insight in discerning clients' needs. Their former careers give them real-life sensitivity to many
aspects of the performance requirements of the role. Importantly, the same consultants that
receive the brief handle every aspect of the search through completion.
FINDING THE BEST
Consultants identify candidates from three sources: their own professional networks and
relationships, those of their worldwide colleagues, and systematic research. The consultants' own
ideas will stem from their knowledge of your sector or function and their experience in executive
search. This pool of known talent is augmented by ideas flowing from other consultants within or
between offices, due to our collaborative culture and remuneration structure that encourages
cooperation. Consequently, clients engage more than individual consultants; they engage the
entire firm with all of its relevant sources and experts. Our researchers and knowledge managers
- who do not approach candidates themselves - constantly monitor career moves of business
leaders in all countries where we operate. They continuously update our global database of more
than a million senior executives.
APPROACHING CANDIDATES
Approaching the candidates is one of two points of maximum leverage in a search, so we never
delegate this critical activity to researchers. The consultants working on the engagement are best
prepared to present the opportunity in a compelling way, articulating the nuances of the position
and commenting meaningfully on the cultural aspects of the client organization. The consultants
will also be able to credibly address concerns candidates may have about the opportunity relative
to their own careers and their prospects within the client organization. Given the background and
seniority of our consultants, most candidates feel the people approaching them are peers in the
business world and usually value their insight and advice; the high quality of the dialogue
between our consultants and candidates greatly increases the prospect of attracting the best talent
to our client organizations. Indeed, our commitment to managing long-term candidate
relationships further strengthens this bond and enhances our access to top talent for our clients.
ASSESSING THE HOW
There is growing recognition that how a person does something predicts success better than what
his or her qualifications theoretically enable him or her to do. When interviewing candidates, our
7. consultants steer away from narrative interviews that simply retrace a person's achievements.
Instead, consultants focus on the "how" questions, following our competency-based interviewing
model. Answers to these questions can be windows into the individual's behavioral
characteristics, enabling sensitive judgment of the candidate's ability to perform in the job and
adapt to the client organization and culture. Examples from a candidate's professional record
allow consultants to better predict whether he or she will thrive when challenged with specific
performance requirements. Further validation through extensive referencing is the final and
crucial complement to the judgment made by our consultants.
ENSURING CLOSURER with the BEST
The second major point of leverage in a search is converting a mutual "fit" into an actual hiring.
In the war for talent, a skilled and insightful approach to closing a search can make the difference
between success and failure. Since our consultants invest in the relationship with candidates
through every step of the search process, they are better able to monitor and address concerns
about the job or the practical and personal aspects of transitioning as they arise, minimizing
barriers to closure at the final stage of a search. Our fixed fee approach assures objectivity on
quantitative aspects of the hiring, allowing consultants to advise both sides in the negotiations
without conflict of interest.
SWBi International RESPONSIBILITY
Our consultants are passionate about assuring that hired candidates make a positive impact that
exceeds our clients' expectations. We follow up with candidate and client at regular intervals to
check on performance and fit. The consultants' diligence in this regard stems not only from
professional pride but also from their long-term outlook toward clients and candidates. This
continuing bond with candidates and clients is one of the reasons that more than two-thirds of
our assignments are repeat engagements for existing clients. The knowledge that our consultants
are motivated by repeat business for the firm's single global ownership structure, rather than
individual rewards, is the best assurance of superior professional execution.
BOARD PRACTICE
SWBi International has a dedicated practice specializing in Board Consulting. The team focuses
its efforts on the highest level of an organization and works in a collaborative manner with the
chairman of the board and its members. Typical activities include reviewing overall Board
performance or appraising individual board member contributions to recruiting directors whose
independence, intellect, integrity and courage will strengthen the board and create sustained
competitive advantage.
SWBi International identifies those critical competencies required of the board as a whole, as
well as its individual members, that will enable it to graduate from the traditional role of
―oversight‖ to the more valuable role of ―contribution‖. An effective board comprised of the
right people, focusing on the right issues, and working in an environment of dialogue, not
monologue, is a high-value corporate asset. We aim to ensure that the board has a balanced
perspective and that the collective wisdom of the directors is unleashed and utilized for the
benefit of the company’s shareholders.
Our approach to Board Consulting acknowledges the wave of change in corporate governance
norms which has taken place around the world in recent years. While the new codes of behavior
may have been justified by the poor or fraudulent actions of some we argue that they are
8. necessary but not sufficient. Only a group of diverse and outstanding individuals combining to
form an exceptional team will achieve sustained effectiveness in the board room.
SWBi International clients range in scale from start-ups, to privately-held family firms, and to
the world’s largest corporations. Typical engagements include:
·
Building a board from scratch at the stage of an initial public offering.
·
Appraising and restructuring an existing board.
·
Reviewing a board’s performance and that of its committees, and refreshing the review
annually
·
Internationalizing an existing board.
·
Assisting a family firm with the appointment of independent directors.
·
Creating a strategic advisory board.
·
Advising on appropriate corporate governance practices.
·
Advising on appropriate remuneration levels and structures.
Our global partnership structure of boutique search firms, shared philosophical approach, ensure
that our clients receive the full benefit of the decades of knowledge and contacts that our
consultants have built up over their careers with our firm. Whether an engagement’s scope is
local, national, regional, or global, our consultants provide salient and pertinent counsel. Our
knowledge, contacts, and efforts result in an outstanding board of directors.