Success Stories

Building the Foundations of a Talent Services System

Our Client, a $2 billion public software company headquartered in Silicon Valley, has been on an acquisition warpath, acquiring 50 plus companies within the last year. Each acquisition had its own set of circumstances and priorities encompassing integration of systems, processes and people. Like other companies in a similar situation, our Client’s Finance & Accounting teams have borne the brunt of this work under increased pressure around Sarbanes Oxley compliance and SEC scrutiny. The result has been a “pressure cooker” environment with very high stakes. Top talent is harder to come by and retain, and maintaining morale has never been more important or as difficult to achieve

In the spring of 2006, our Client’s Senior Vice President Finance & Controller engaged Selker Leadership to conduct a pilot Performance Values Assessment engagement within their Finance & Accounting division to address these challenges and several long standing concerns.

Several years ago, our Client developed a core set of five values they believed truly represented their ideal culture. They created an acronym using the first letters of each of the values and this had become part of the conversational fabric of the company’s culture. However, the SVP Finance & Controller realized that other than mentioning this acronym in interviews, performance reviews and meetings, there was little rigor for identifying values-representative behavior. Values-based behavior was spoken about in general terms as an ideal. It was mentioned throughout the organization as “be more values-centered” or “bring values into your work.” Verbalizing these phrases was not delivering a different behavioral result.

The PVA Pilot called for Leadership Development Assessments to be conducted on two senior personnel, the construction of 10 Performance Values Frameworks for key managerial positions where multiple people either needed to be hired for, or promoted into, and the training of approximately 60 senior managers within Finance & Accounting on how to use the Performance Values Frameworks and PVA methodology in an interview and assessment. Lastly, our Client licensed the PVA methodology for use within the Finance & Accounting division.

On all counts, the pilot has been a resounding success. The Leadership Development Assessments delivered factual feedback to the two individuals on what they needed to do to elevate their performance to the next level. This feedback occurred in the context of Critical Learnings with Action Areas detailing options to sustain behavioral changes. All of this was grounded in each individual’s own words that were transcribed from the session. Unlike most 360’s, Performance Values Leadership Development Assessments act as a mirror where individuals see themselves in comparison to a set of specific, high performance behaviors.

The Performance Values Frameworks contained a set of behavioral questions that represented the ideal values-based behavior for each position. Combined with the training on how to use these frameworks for interview and assessment, our Client’s Finance & Accounting management team are now fully empowered to conduct PVA interviews in which they can discern a deeper level of skills and competencies, leadership capabilities and truly understand whether or not an individual will contribute to creating a culture representative of the company’s values.

Since the completion of this pilot, the two individuals who participated in the Leadership Development Assessments are incorporating the Action Areas into their behavior and producing immediate results. One of the individuals was able to demonstrate such marked improvement in performance that recently she was promoted from Director to Vice President. Since, then Selker Leadership has been asked to conduct additional Leadership Development Assessments on existing personnel within the Finance & Accounting division. The Performance Values Frameworks and the training on their usage have resulted in better interviews and hires and no hiring mistakes. People who have interviewed with the company, regardless of whether or not they have been hired, have experienced the interview as a positive reflection of the company. Each interview conducted using the Frameworks and the PVA methodology has reinforced the importance of values-based behavior. Morale is naturally improving. The Finance & Accounting division is setting a new standard for the rest of the company.

Based on this success, Human Resources recently expanded the original pilot to encompass the Product Management division. This is occurring simultaneous to a corporate restructuring which is reorganizing the functional and business units under Product Management. Similar to the original pilot, Selker Leadership has developed Performance Values Frameworks for key positions within the Product Management Division, conducted several Leadership Development Assessments of senior personnel, and will be training 80 people on the use of the frameworks for interview and assessment.

With the success of the consulting work within Finance & Accounting combined with the work within Product Management, our client has made the decision to use Selker Leadership’s PVA Tools and Methodologies as the foundation for a talent services and development system. This company-wide implementation will encompass a corporate license, the training and certification of a group of people to develop Performance Values Frameworks on their own and train their own personnel in the use of the PVA methodology, and a web-based application which will track the frameworks usage, scoring and be applied to assist with leadership development, succession planning and continued growth and development around organizational competencies.

Building a Better Mirror for Leaders

What We Know

In our many years in working with Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers and other technology leaders, we have found that IT leadership increasingly isolates themselves from the business clients they serve and, as a result, IT organizations begin to be perceived by their business leadership peers as a secondary player in making key business decisions. This lack of understanding when it comes to key business issues and concerns continues to create the reality where IT is not included in core business conversations.

Additionally, within the Performance Values Leadership Development sessions we have led, the CIOs and CTOs participating often complain about the lack of fundamental competencies in their management processes of planning, organizing, coordinating, directing and controlling activities within their organizations. These managerial deficiencies have slowed down decisions, dragging out the execution of critical projects and further complicating the relationship between the IT organizations and business units.

Lastly, we have found that business leaders who had high expectations that their IT organizations would be a key source driving innovation have noted that this is increasingly rare. We have concluded that IT managers, and emerging technology leaders, are generally struggling with their transition from a functional management role to leading and managing across the enterprise in collaboration with their business clients.

As a result of these issues Selker Leadership began to focus on applying our Performance Values Assessment methodology to IT teams that needed to redefine their image, many of their leadership and managerial competencies, and improve their connection to the business units they support. In two recent cases, one with a global manufacturing company and one with a global health care company, we have worked with CIO’s and portions of their leadership teams to create unprecedented success. Today we have several stories of how these technology leaders are succeeding because they literally discovered a better mirror and new ways to view themselves with reality. The PVA system provides a quality of insight that allows high potential leaders to change and get to higher levels of leadership and success.

Applied PVA Case One: An Industrial CIO

In working with the CIO of a $13 B global manufacturing company, we began our consulting engagement by helping him improve IT governance and clarifying the roles and responsibilities of his IT leadership team. Once the team had developed a new charter to guide their reconnection to their business units, we supported the CIO in defining a new dialogue with the CFO and other key leaders to help him “re-brand” the IT organization.

The next step in the process was to create the master Performance Values Framework which defined the ideal behavior which would deliver on critical work performance goals, strategic and leadership objectives while highly representing the intended values of the organization. We then used this Framework to conduct a Performance Values Leadership Development session with the CIO.

The Performance Values Leadership Development session measured the CIO’s existing performance and behaviors against the ideal Performance Values behaviors as well as a set of “executive values and behaviors” associated with a next level of business leadership. The results of this assessment led the CIO to a genuine awakening regarding his core strengths, his opportunities for significant improvement, and creating a new context for the overall elevation of his leadership capabilities and style to a new level.

Based on following the steps defined as Action Areas in several Critical Learnings, the CIO was able to improve his dialogue and connections with his peers and management in the business units he supports, to the point that he is now seen as a key “business contributor” and a strategic thinker within his company. In addition to improving his own business leadership image with the company, the CIO learned that he needed to showcase the contributions of his team to better communicate and highlight the business contributions and value of IT to the business. Instead of IT being perceived as a cost center, he has transitioned their image and reputation to being perceived as a valued partner.

He has even developed, with the assistance of his CFO, a methodology for measuring the financial improvement and contribution various IT initiatives are making to his company’s EPS. Finally, the PVA process provided the CIO with a framework for his own continuous leadership development. As a result of the impact of the Performance Values Leadership Development session, the CIO has extended this work to one of his key European leaders and is using the master Performance Values Framework as a basis for evaluating the performance of his key leadership team. This has resulted in developing a more service-focused and values-based technical staff and organization.

Applied PVA Case Two: The Healthcare CIO

Our Client, a CIO of a $25B global health care company, the CIO was concerned about the current state of his leadership team. He wanted to understand where they stood, relative to each other, in their leadership capabilities and potentials. He wanted to use this information to define a team development plan that would strengthen the performance of his entire team. The CIO decided to experience the Performance Values Leadership Development session first before offering it to his team. Here again, we created a master Performance Values Framework that redefined the performance values and behavior of his 2000 person IT organization to the highest level of performance. This Framework was also extended to include “executive values and behaviors” associated with a next level of business leadership to determine how the CIO would compare to peers in business P&L roles.

The results of this assessment produced some hard hitting results for the CIO and demonstrated for him in clear and specific details that he had work to do if he wanted to get to the next level of leadership. First, he had to draw a stronger line between himself as the top leader of his organization and stop trying to be “just another one of the guys.” His previous behaviors in this connection had caused him to defer hard decisions about promotions and re-assignments of key leaders.

This CIO needed to meet his public diplomacy obligations to the corporation by working more effectively with associate CIO’s across the corporation, rather than avoiding them, to leverage the strength of the collective IT communities. Finally, this CIO needed to work on his leadership presence and communication style to have a more positive impact with business leaders and the senior executives of the corporation. Clearly this CIO had high potential and a keen interest in getting to the next level of leadership.

Based on the impact of his personal Performance Values Leadership Development session, Selker Leadership was asked to create a team-based Performance Values Framework for the senior leadership team. Similar to a standard Performance Values Framework for a specific position, this team-based approach defines the ideal behavior of a member of the IT leadership team within this organization that delivers on critical work performance goals, strategic and leadership objectives while highly representing the intended values of the organization.

The Results Speak for Themselves

In both of success stories, the CIOs experienced the PVA process and as a result of this experience saw the need to integrate Performance Values Frameworks and Performance Values Assessments into their respective organizations. And in each case, the result of the PVA process has been the development of a clear pathway to achieve dramatic improvements which are significantly impacting each CIO’s overall business and corporation.

Each CIO, who was individually struggling with his transition to a larger more business-oriented role, has learned what he needed to do to succeed, and what to do to continue growth and learning about his own leadership effectiveness. Each person realized he needed to hone his “business sensibilities,” visibly demonstrating this new awareness to his peers, direct reports and senior management. Each CIO saw that taking these personal steps forward would also bring his organization to a new level of effectiveness and contribution.

As part of our process to build these leadership foundations in our clients, Selker Leadership conducts six month check ups on leaders and their teams to assess their progress and to encourage them to stay on track. What we have learned from our experience in this work is that technology professionals in this new century can learn how to deal with the new complexities of global business. They can learn how to become innovative enablers for their business clients. They can effectively move their organizations from being viewed as only a “cost center” to being perceived as a “value contributor.”

With Selker Leadership’s proven PVA services, the technology leadership we are working with is quickly figuring out how to become global business leaders for their companies today and into the future.