My friend Clark Waterfall has posted another entry in his ongoing series shining a light into the black box that is retained executive search.  He looks at the perennial question of Subject Matter Expert versus Best Athlete.  Lots of good discussion there on the factors that ought to power that decision, but I wanted to pull just one thread out of it.  Clark mentions that mature companies may want to lean toward the Best Athlete model to bring in fresh perspectives. 

If they can take their business athletic ability and learn a new sport/industry, it keeps them motivated, excited, fresh, and leaning into the role rather than what can be called “career-coasting,” where an executive is just doing the same thing for a different company-same industry, same title, same goals, etc.

The idea of career coasting is an interesting one, and one I think should be given more consideration even in not yet mature company situations.  Too frequently board members or CEOs, when they think of the position spec, will ask for somebody who's done exactly this recently and successfully and perhaps repeatedly.  Career coasting is one of myriad reasons to think that this kind of focus can be a big mistake. 

If you think about hiring decisions in the context of candidates who are already well know to the hiring authorities, we frequently give people jobs that are a step removed from their previous experience. Venture investors will take a CEO who they trust to get things done, and put him into another company significantly different from the earlier experience. In larger companies taking on new challenges, only partially related to previous experience, is part of any high performing executive's development. Only in the hiring strangers context is such a premium put on the close fit of industry expertise. Why do people act that way? Perhaps it gives us something concrete we can use to rationalize the decision rather than have to admit that we're relying solely on our own judgement.

At any rate Clark gave me an excuse to go on about one of my pet theories, that one of the biggest hiring mistakes I see is too tight a focus on experience in exactly X market. Of course, there are positions where that does make sense, but I believe hiring authorities tend too frequently in that direction by default.

As Dell buys Exanet's assets, CEO Mark Weiner must be feeling vindicated a bit, I imagine.  The company flamed out after some of his board block an earlier Dell deal.  Some history here.  Also former CEOs Rami Schwartz and Arnon Gat, both of whom led the company within the past three years, must be feeling something too. 

As a search professional, it may be heresy for me to say so, but sometimes a new CEO is not the answer.  Too often boards look at replacing the CEO as a magic easy button that will make their problems go away.  New CEOs can fall into the same trap.  (nobody gets to be a CEO without some ego.) 

Don't get me wrong, new CEO's may bring new solutions with them, but they still have to be solutions the same problems the previous CEo faced.

So we're coming up on a year of Carol Bartz's tenure at Yahoo.  Bloomberg reports that she gives herself a B minus so far. 

B- or B+, whatever.  The fact that she and Yahoo are around for her to give herself grades at all is the most significant grade to be had. 

Cisco has acquired Rohati for an undisclosed amount and brought this team of former Cisco folks back into its embrace.  Their head-to-head battle is now over. 

When we look at the team still at Rohati we see mostly engineers, which may explain the many product awards they've won.  However, there is a conspicuous void in the VP Sales slot.  Understandable perhaps as they had Shane Buckley as CEO up until four months ago.  His background is sales, and he certainly could have been playing the role.  Rohati did briefly have a VP Sales though, a fellow named Colin Bastable.  He was only there four months in late 2008, but his description of the solution is less than complimentary. 

Tessera anounced Monday that CEO Hank Nothhaft was also taking over the Chairman slot.  Interesting to see them bucking the trend toward seperating the roles.  Hank's track record shows that he's a savvy executive, but these really are two different jobs.  There are good arguments on both sides of the split or not split question, but lately the split camp has been in the ascendant.  I wonder what is different about Tessera or the people involved that made them decide to move in the other direction. 

Of course, sometimes managing the board can be less work for a CEO if he or she is Chairman than if he or she is not.  One is not so much taking on a second role as formalizing what one is already doing and so making it easier.