Who do I make CEO: The young star the CEO or the old pro?

Dear Aunty B,

I can’t make up my mind and I am hoping you can help. We are hiring a CEO for one of our new divisions (which is really a fancy title for general manager, but anyway).

We have two contenders. One came after an exhaustive recruitment and interviewing process where the quality on offer was really terrible and at the last minute up comes Mr Nearly Perfect.

But the dilemma is this. While we were in despair at not finding anyone we began to look more closely at someone within the organisation. He is young, has been with us for five years and knows the business inside out.

He gets technology and has made some significant suggestions to improve the business and some of those had nothing to do with his job. He came up with a new business product that made us money as soon as it launched because he managed to get everyone behind it and pushing it.

He is a bit of a young buck and aggressive but, everyone likes him and he loves the business and is really loyal. My worry with him is his lack of experience in business and I would prefer someone older and with more experience of business cycles and business in general. I also worry that his youth and the likeability factor means he won’t command respect.

On the other hand Mr Nearly Perfect has lots of experience and is very well regarded in the industry but when we asked him about new business initiatives he said it would take him a while to really understand the business before he could make meaningful input into business development.

He is not as technically savvy as the insider and given his age I am not sure how quickly he would ever be on top of our technology.

If I could take the two of them and merge them I would have my perfect hire. So who do I choose? And there is no use going back to market and continuing to look because Mr Nearly Perfect seems like a miracle find.

Uncertain,
Sydney.

Dear Uncertain,

Are you nuts? Why are you uncertainy? The answer is staring you in the face! Dump Mr Nearly Perfect and upgrade Mr Young.

Give Mr Young the title of general manager and tell him the CEO position is a year away and in that 12 months he has to really step up into that role by demonstrating (here you present him with a list).

You also outline the assistance you are going to give him. He is your natural successor and if you had half a brain you would have spent the past few years working on building a successor instead of thinking you can hire one in.

What I love about Mr Young is that he knows your business inside out.

Do you know how good that is?

Do you know how painful it is bringing in an outsider?

Do you know how much time you have to spend mentoring Mr Outsider and how closely you have to monitor him because he will make well intentioned mistakes – and many of them early on?

Second, Mr Young is an innovator. He understands the businesses strengths and weaknesses, he understands the marketplace and he gets your competitive advantage and value proposition.

How do I know all that? He came up with suggestions to improve the business and created a successful new product. That might look easy and he probably made it look easy but there are many skills involved in taking strategic risks like that and pulling it off.

Third he has the guts, passion and drive to be looking for opportunities. He doesn’t just turn up at work every day to get the job done. He is a revenue driver and he is loyal and passionate, which means you should be swooning by now not looking over the fence.

Fourth he gets technology. Every business these days is a technology business that does something. We are a technology business that does media, for example.

Your comment about Mr Nearly perfect being old is nonsense. People who get technology can be young or old. But to have a technology native at the wheel is a dream.

Fifth everyone likes him. What? You want them to hate him, fear him? People who are likeable are better motivators and better negotiators in my book. So what was it that you didn’t like again?

His youth? You don’t say how old he is but you managed to get everyone behind him for the product launch, so it’s not like he is the office junior who does the coffee run.

So why not hire him immediately into the role of CEO? Because you haven’t done your job and he is not quite ready. You need to mentor him to step up and look out. He needs to build his networks and to show that he can create strategy for the business, not just for his division.

And for an aggressive young buck the lure of being CEO means he will chase that carrot. Put in Mr Nearly Perfect and Mr Young may well leave.

Be smart.
Your Aunty B.