She lists three key insights every business owner should remember when starting a Search:
As the business grows, owners of family businesses face a challenge to transition towards more structured management, rigorous strategic planning and the need to bring in new skills to improve efficiency and profitability.
Oftentimes it means a search for new CEO with strong track record of leading growing enterprises and success in international expansion.
In the majority of cases, recruiters have to consider more factors than usual, including a company history, family dynamics and core values, traditions and expectations of the workforce.
Furthermore, it is critically important to ensure that the owner and candidate share a joint vision regarding the owner's involvement into decision making once the new CEO is in place.
For an external CEO to be successful in a family businesses he/she needs to build strong relationship with the owners. It is impossible without shared values and beliefs- these are as important as professional skills and competencies.
In fact cultural fit is a critical element that makes or breaks long term future collaboration. Therefore the sourcing of candidates should include a particular emphasis on the candidate‘s ability to connect with the company’s values and mission.
How fast does the the owner want to reach the targets? How is the timeline viewed by the new CEO? How long and what errors will be tolerable? When and how will both the owner and CEO know their relationship works? Both sides tend to rush and to forget that expectations should be specified in great detail and efforts should be made to establish a realistic rather than an optimistic timeline. A time buffer should be in place bearing in mind that the owner knows what they want, but knowledge transfer does not happen in a couple of weeks.
To understand the candidates' market is not an easy task for those who never dealt with it. Hiring for family owned business requires deep expertise and abilities to facilitate the dialogue between the owner and potential hire to ensure the match. Furthermore, it requires a well detailed on-boarding process which often gets forgotten. Experienced consultants should be the advisor to both parties in order to ensure an optimal outcome.
As ever, our conference will feature a rich programme of keynotes, presentations, workshops and panel discussions which will provide critical content to help our consultants, and the clients they serve, thrive.
Our Spring conference is being held in Madrid and our Spanish colleagues are looking forward to welcoming us, once again, to their vibrant city.
There will also be time for great networking opportunities as well as the chance to share knowledge and best practice. We all continue our relentless pursuit of constant improvement and advancement through learning from each other and growing together. We know that culture change and purpose are gaining more attention than ever as leaders seek to define their organisations as attractive and meaningful places to work.
Organisations must be prepared to adapt and evolve as the world around us changes. We must learn how the disruptions of the recent past can be reframed for a thriving future for Friisberg and its clients.
However, the impact of social crisis, economic dislocation, and global pandemic also calls on us to reflect on how we work, what we believe, and what matters most. We are a supportive organisation and recognise that many of our colleagues, especially those whose neighbours may now be at war, are facing unknowable challenges.
We all genuinely enjoy spending time with each other and look forward to visiting our beautiful offices in Madrid.
In times of change much is on the shoulders of leaders. They have to decide with speed and accuracy, adapt boldly, deliver reliably and commit to impact while retaining their energy and health.
Rapid external change should be followed by wise and rapid changes inside the corporation.
Leaders are usually fast in processing available information, determining what is necessary and making decisions thereafter. It is easier if 3-5 priorities are defined which become the basis for decisions, be they financial liquidity, customer care, or keeping all engineers on payroll. Smart compromises are also easier to make if priorities are set.
Sometimes it is smart to ask for expertise and seek new inputs. It is also good to decide what not to do and share it with team. New rules of the game should include new modes of action as the old ways sometimes halt progress. Times of big change usually mean stopping and overlooking the big financially bonding plans.
Leaders also tend to keep an eye on all the important functions that may change in quickly- supply chain, transportation and others that may need backup in the near future.
Effective leaders are acutely aware of their team's distractions and their collective and individual frames of mind so they seek ways of engaging and motivating them when communicating new information and goals.
While many factors may not be under their control, they seek to align the team's objectives, develop new performance monitoring indicators and create a culture of accountability.
During a crisis, people will be be overloaded with emotions, and incomplete information will distract resulting in paralysis. It might be good to focus on a few things that matter most and make an scalable framework for quick decision-making.
It is necessary for an effective leader to keep themselves fit both physically and emotionally. Establishing a healthy routine such as mindfulness exercises, short gym sessions, plenty of time outdoors and time with family in the evening are all essential.
Pille Päss
Partner, Estonia
Business organizations are now coming to terms on how the COVID-19 pandemic has become the greatest catalyst of workplace transformations of our lifetime.
In retrospect, what many business organizations did not envision was the extent to which employees would be working remotely from homes, and scrambling across back-to-back virtual meetings, while juggling the competing demands of home schooling. This evolution of work-life and the workforce has consequently impacted how HR professionals manage recruitment and talent acquisition. One of the more pronounced effects has been the increasing reliance on digital recruitment/search platforms (such as LinkedIn, JazzHR, Workable, Zoho Recruit, etc.) to source for viable candidates as fear of physical interactions through face-to face engagement peaks.
Is this true or just a perceived mental model in the post-COVID world? To answer this question, one needs to start with the endgame in mind. It is undeniable that the advent of technology will transform the way recruiters conduct searches on the way forward.
Artificial intelligence has been proven to be a capability multiplier in many aspects of work transformation. As a case in point, technology has made job search a little easier to publish and search for employee resumes, facilitating virtual interviews online, breaking down geographical separation, and allowing HR professionals to cast their net wider. However, before one is led to believe that technology can replace the “man-in-the-loop” in talent acquisition, it is important to appreciate the limits of the current state of technology and the nuances of executive retained search.
The search for C-suite level and senior executives is fundamentally a people-centric process; something that search platforms alone cannot adequately fill. Correct job fit is not based merely on CVs and past work experience alone. There are tacit work characteristics such as personality match, cultural fit, team dynamics and personal aspiration alignment. To find that best candidate, current technology (even with AI and data science) cannot adequately address those information gaps.
In essence, retained Executive Search services involve a meticulous process of human interaction that taps on the deep expertise of professional interviewers, whose skills and “gut-feel” have been honed over the years.
Securing candidates for top or strategic management roles (CEO, CFO, COO, CMO, GM, board member, etc.) requires the “feel” for the candidate in that specific organization, industry, and market. It is very different from conventional recruitment and requires a human mind that appreciates beyond titles and responsibilities – someone who knows the market and the context in which the respective candidates worked, who can read between the lines, who understands the challenges, opportunities, and trends in the industry.
We pride ourselves in being a market leader in the above methodology of retained search for the following reasons:
We are one of the leading global consulting practices specializing in financial services and digital-age technological hires with 30+ years of experience in solutions for Fortune 500 companies worldwide aimed at retaining, developing, and advancing next generation technological breakthroughs.
We have an impeccable and consistent track record of delivering top talents that have been a perfect fit for advanced technology firms, global IT companies and start-ups. This is possible because of our proven methodology of precise job profiling and multi-level deep investigative search.
We have breadth and depth. We have a team of experts and global networks with extensive market domain knowledge to help our clients secure top revenue generators, product developers, market leaders and investors; talents that are key to securing your next cycle of growth. With experts in every area of people and organizational development worldwide, we can help you envision, design, and build a truly inclusive organization.
Janet Tweed and Richard Khee Loon Foo
Members are given the opportunity to share an important moment or dilemma in their professional / managerial lives.
The first such conversation was undertaken by Zoltán who discussed why he decided to put himself forward for the international position of Chair of Friisberg earlier this year.
"It took immense courage actually to decide to run. I have been a member of Friisberg's Executive Committee for a number of years in an international Business Development role and so I understood how the different global markets operated, the way the local offices were run and of course I knew my colleagues well. Even so, to take on this role was a big decision. I knew it would take time, a great deal of personal commitment and of course I am still extremely busy in my own local market of Hungary!"
The Friisberg Partners overwhelmingly voted for Zoltán in July 1, 2021,
"It was a huge honour to be elected and I am committed to growing Friisberg, to strengthening our presence across international markets and to providing all our clients with unrivalled service."
We have all encountered a similar situation that required us to step out of our normal world and to push our borders further. Zoltán's success is instructive for many of us.
The onlyCEO Club is a unique community of business leaders – a meeting place for key leaders from various industries.
This International Women's Day we would like to celebrate the talented and determined women of Friisberg.
This year’s theme is #breakthebias which encourages us all to strive for a gender equal world.
We are proud that Friisberg & Partners International has been a long term champion of equality achieving 50-50 representation and ensuring women are fairly represented at all levels of the business.
It is a business-imperative and something that is increasingly seen as a differentiator in client relationships.
To attract and retain top female talent, we need approachable role models. Current and future talent demand it and, if it’s not authentically experienced in the workplace, that talent will vote with their feet and businesses will simply fail.
International Women's Day gives us a chance to focus on gender balance - the magic ingredient to make a team great to work in, and great to work with.
The Metaverse is a virtual world, one to which we will connect using a range of devices to make us think that we are really inside it - interacting with all its elements. It will be like actually teleporting to a whole new world through virtual reality glasses and other accessories.
We have experienced them for decades in the videogames' industry, where by creating a character you can live adventures through your computer. However, the metaverse is not looking to be just a fantasy world, but perhaps now a kind of an alternative reality in which we can do the same things we do everyday, but without leaving our room.
Facebook and other companies are betting on the creation of a parallel, but completely virtual, universe, accessed via virtual and augmented reality devices, so we can interact with each other 'realistically'.
The key to this metaverse is that we can be fully immersive in it - or at least much more than the current and rather basic virtual reality that exists today. We might initially need to use glasses similar to those currently available, but additionally we will use sensors to capture our physical movements enabling our 'avatar' to have a fully immersive experience.
Devices to enable interpretation of facial expressions will mean that our avatar in the metaverse can recreate us, and other people with whom we are interacting can understand how we feel. Body language will be imperative for these virtual interactions to feel 'real'.
We will continue to analyse how can we can utilise new technologies in our everyday professional lives - might we soon be able to evaluate candidate competencies through their behaviour in the metaverse?
Javier Uruburu
Partner, Spain
It represents a practical assignment where differences in experience and personality emerge clearly. The case also provides an objectivised basis for comparing and ranking candidate presentations.
We see, even with experienced executives, that proposed solutions vary sharply in terms of the ability to shed light on the specific case, to prioritise core issues, and to apply their own experience and expertise.
In their initial meeting with the client, the candidates learn about the business, its strategies and the people involved.
The client learns about each candidate’s experience, motivation and ambitions. In this round, three-four candidates normally stand out with a relevant background, good motivation for changing jobs, personal ambitions and potential cultural fit.
In the next round, we want to develop the dialogue further. We will become better informed about how candidates approach relevant company issues. Together with the client, we therefore develop a case which gives all the candidates the same starting point for the next meeting.
The case will reflect commercial issues at the client and is formulated in a sufficiently open way that the candidates can be invited to make their own assumptions, delineate and prioritise
Candidates receive the case two days before the meeting in order to see how they apply their knowledge and experience rather than how much time they are able to devote to preparations
Candidates are free to choose the form of their presentation
The candidate will use 20 minutes to present their solution, followed by 40 minutes of questions, elaboration and discussion.
Benedikte Stiff / Hild Kinder
Partners Oslo
In nearly every conversation we’ve had recently with executives across industries, we keep hearing that great people are harder to find and it’s increasingly difficult to convince them to make a move.
Many companies realise they would benefit from the knowhow, experience and connections of an Executive Search firm, but often have misconceptions about the way we work.
When talking with a prospective client, we are often asked whether we would consider a contingency search model without exclusivity. Sometimes it is because a client has not experienced retained search before and on the surface the main difference appears to be simply an issue of how the fee is paid.
But that difference drives a completely different approach to assignments and it often necessitates an explanation.
While we believe there are merits of both, a clear understanding of the differences is critical to making the right decision for a specific search.
At first consideration, the non-exclusive contingency model may seem better for the client - there is no perceived risk because there is no upfront payment and engaging more firms casts a wider net to elicit faster and better results? This thinking, while common, actually works against the clients’ interests, it will seldom ensure access to the best talent and can create damage in many ways.
It is important to realise that the contingency model makes the provider to work with a large number of positions at the same time and to focus on the roles that are most likely to be filled quickly. Though high speed can be a good thing, quality and service will be compromised and the client will get CVs of the most easy to reach candidates who are currently available, yet not always the best for the role. A contingent search means that when the recruiters get bored, frustrated or tired, they can quit, there is no commitment from any side.
While contingency firms would ideally like to create a positive candidate experience, the focus will be on the transaction - just getting a number of suitable resumes in the door first. But because the best candidates are generally passive, busy, usually just casually looking at online opportunities (if at all), they will seldom respond and apply, except those actively searching for a job and that is only about 5% of all potentials.
To get the attention of passive candidates, a search requires careful engagement strategies and personalised presentation of the company and opportunity, therefore many great candidates will be missed because the contingency search is under pressure to present candidates quickly. These are the experiences that often give the recruitment professionals a poor reputation and the unfortunate negative perception among candidates.
One big recruitment myth is that recruiters will work harder when they have to compete with other search firms. That never guarantees success, it actually creates chaos in communication among all parties, high activity at the beginning of the assignment and a rush to make a referral before anyone else.
There is lack of research, assessment, commitment and guarantees from the non-exclusive contingent search.
If exclusivity for one firm is not agreed, candidates will be approached by several recruiters for the same position. This may completely put off many passive candidates because it is perceived negatively, it diminishes the importance of the position and candidates may be concerned about confidentiality.
What works best for attracting the senior candidates is a committed partnership where there is an accountability to find the right fit – something that definitely benefits the client.
In today’s candidate-driven market, it is extremely important to tune into what candidates are looking for in their next roles. Lockdowns gave people time to reflect, they look for purpose, work-life balance and are extremely careful about confidentiality.
The candidate experience should be a priority for a retained firm.
The assurance of importance, exclusivity and confidentiality will elevate the client brand and can persuade candidates to open up and consider opportunities at times they would not be actively looking. Most experienced leaders recognise that executive search professionals can be very valuable advisors and are honest and open with them in ways they can not be directly with an employer. This is also helpful in managing future career expectations, negotiating salary and contract terms.
If you want to ensure you get the very best talent, and not just an immediately available hire for the key positions, exclusive retained search is the best choice.
Retained search is better for everyone involved: the client, the candidate, as well as the search firm.
Andrea Chládková
Partner, Prague
In the US, retailers will reap $20 billion in sales by the time the holiday is over and in the UK £1.37 billion.
Valentines Day however dates back to the Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia when people would honour the gods of agriculture and fertility. During Lupercalia women were whipped and animals were sacrificed - thankfully the event has evolved somewhat!
We spoke with our Friisberg people around the world and it seems they all have their own traditions to celebrate love.
The Feast of San Dionisio is celebrated on 9th October in Valencia. Much like Valentine’s Day (which is also celebrated in Spain as El día de San Valentín), the Feast of San Dionisio is a celebration of love and romance in the name of the patron saint of lovers and has been observed since around the 18th century. Gifting scarves full of marzipan is a sweet custom (Mocaorà) Women who receive this gift should keep all of their scarves to show how long the couple has been together.
The tradition of Gaekkebrev - the sending of a humorous love poem - is still very much alive in Denmark and Norway. They are written on hand-decorated cards or letters that resemble paper snowflakes and are sent anonymously. If the recipient of the poem can guess who sent it, then the sender must buy them with a chocolate egg for Easter. If, however, the sender remains undiscovered, then the recipient must buy a gift for them when their identity is revealed!
In Norway, rather than roses, friends and sweethearts exchange pressed white flowers - Snowdrops.
It's been said that the first Valentine's Day card originated in France when Charles, Duke of Orleans, sent love letters to his wife while imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1415.
Today, Italians celebrate Valentine's Day with gifts and romantic dinners. One of the most popular Valentine's Day gifts in Italy is Baci Perugina, which are small, chocolate-covered hazelnuts wrapped with a romantic quote printed in four languages.
Finland and Estonia opt for a friendlier celebration called Ystävän Päivä in Finnish and Sõbrapäev in Estonian instead. Here, February 14 is all about celebrating friendship, and people exchange presents and cards with the greeting ‘Happy Friends Day’.
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