Although unlikely to win popularity contests amongst search firms and headhunters around the world, is the process of bringing in superstar CEOs actually a great idea? The likes of Yahoo! and HP are at various stages of bringing in stellar external talent, but what sort of affect is this likely to have on their business and their employee base? A great piece in this week’s Economist points to two ramifications of such policy – that the more an organisation invests in a high flying recruit, the more likely it is to go horrendously wrong. Of course, the other downside of overlooking existing talent within the workforce, in the rush to bring in a new CEO from the outside, is the destruction of internal morale and engagement. As career advancement hopes are raised by the departure of the previous senior executive and the hopes and ambition this brings with it, we can only imagine how cruelly they are dashed by the announcement that no-one internally is deemed to have the talent necessary to take the helm. And as engagement becomes more and more important, is the situation improving? Not really. In the 1970s, 15% of CEO roles were filled from outside the organisation, 30 years later that figure is 33%.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset
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Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 