After an extensive search, finding the right CEO feels like a triumph. But the true challenge lies in what comes after. Onboarding and supporting the success of a new executive is the board’s most consequential responsibility, yet it’s the only major governance task they must manage without their usual staff support.
There is a tricky balance to achieve in those first critical months. The board needs to offer appropriate support so the new executive can hit the ground running. The executive needs enough autonomy to do the job they were hired for. And both parties need an established system of accountability to ensure everyone’s expectations stay aligned.
Your executive search firm has worked closely with the new executive and the search committee during the months leading up to the hire. We serve as a trusted facilitator who understands the perspectives and expectations of both parties and can leverage the depth of information surfaced during the search to help create a framework for onboarding and performance management.
At Staffing Advisors, our Founder and President, Bob Corlett, leads post-hire support for two years following every CEO or executive director hire. Bob developed this program by talking to nonprofit and association leaders and board members who have gone through these transitions to find out what they needed, what worked, and what didn’t. The following outlines our approach.
Starting With Results
Staffing Advisors’ Results-Based Hiring® Process is designed to ensure fairness, consistency, and accuracy by leveling the playing field and evaluating all candidates by the same objective criteria. The process begins by exploring your organization’s most critical business issues and strategic priorities, identifying the specific business results and impact you expect a new hire to achieve, and determining the most important job competencies likely to lead to those results.
To surface information, our team leads conversations with multiple key stakeholders, including staff, current and former board members, leaders of peer organizations, the outgoing executive (as appropriate), and other relevant stakeholders. This could include environmental scans, strategic planning information, budgets, and progress on key initiatives.
We distill and synthesize that information to debrief search committee members, align on what success looks like in the role, and ultimately inform the job description and vetting criteria. That same information creates a foundation for highly targeted post-hire support. Relevant insights may include:
- Organizational nuances that differentiate you from peer or competitor organizations.
- Team and board structure to clarify expectations around decision-making authority and management.
- Staff–board interaction patterns that influence communication, culture, and performance.
- Strategic issues and emerging challenges facing your members.
- How decisions are made at the board and staff levels, including areas of alignment or bottlenecks.
- Benchmarks of current practices and effectiveness compared to similar organizations.
- The history and evolution of products, programs, and revenue streams to inform future strategy.
Data-Driven Accountability
Once the search process is complete, it’s typical for things to change in an organization. There could be turnover in board membership or shifts in stakeholder expectations. This creates a challenge in keeping board members and the new leader accountable to the expectations set during the hiring process. It’s essential to have good data to maintain consistency.
The information gathered, reviewed, and approved during the search can be used to develop precise performance benchmarks. This allows the board to be more rigorous in evaluating the success of the new hire, while the new leader benefits from objective, concrete goals to reach for. For example, if stakeholder interviews revealed a need for the new CEO to focus on improving the business model given shifts in the external environment, we support the board in identifying specific metrics to track progress in this area.
With decades of experience in executive search and extensive board advisory experience with complex, mission-driven organizations, our team has a deep understanding of industry trends and leadership dynamics and can provide strategic recommendations based on patterns we see emerge.
A Framework for Structured Post-Hire Support
The structure of our post-hire support program varies based on the specific needs and governance model of the hiring organization. A growing nonprofit faces very different challenges than an established trade association, a credentialing or certification board, a philanthropic foundation, or a federated network with distributed authority across chapters or affiliates. We work with you to establish a cadence and structure that best supports your goals. Services may include:
- Impact alignment check-ins with the executive, full board, or designated committees.
- Consultation on organizational design, talent acquisition, and employee engagement.
- Consultation on governance model questions and decision-making structures.
- Vendor management support to evaluate new and existing partners and contracts.
- Guidance on performance and compensation benchmarks, including goal setting, performance metrics, and progress toward impact goals.
- Support in preparing for the one-year performance review and, if requested, coordination with a third-party performance management consultant.
- Ongoing guidance through year two, supporting continued alignment between leadership actions and strategic goals.
Our Investment In Your Success
As an executive search firm serving the nonprofit and association sectors, we view every search as part of a long-term partnership. Our team invests a significant amount of work into developing an information ecosystem that enables us to find the candidate who can drive the impact you need. And we consider it our ethical obligation to pass that along so you can make data-based decisions, proactively address challenges, and set your new leader up for long-term success.
Learn More About CEO Executive Search and Transitions
Planning for a CEO transition is no small task. We pulled together our best resources on topics from succession planning and choosing a hiring partner to a comprehensive checklist for search committee chairs in our CEO Search Committee Toolkit. Every perspective is based on our work with nonprofit and association leaders over the years.