I came across an article the other day about what corporate boards do when they’re looking for new CEOs, and I was struck by the parallels between CEO searches and our rabbinic search. A rabbi isn’t the synagogue’s “CEO,” of course, but like a corporation searching for an important executive, a synagogue searching for a new rabbi has to choose carefully among a limited number of diverse candidates while remaining mindful of the needs and desires of the organization’s many stakeholders.
The author, Rakesh Khurana of Harvard Business School, spent five years studying CEO hires and found a number of “best practices,” some of which are worth thinking about in the context of our rabbinic search.
The first: Ideally, the board should use the search as an opportunity for organizational introspection. It should examine the strategic and market challenges facing the company and identify the leadership attributes necessary to meet them. In our context, that would mean looking at where we are as a congregation, what our desires and challenges are and what kind of rabbinic leadership would best help us get to where we want to go.
Discussing issues like these is one of the purposes of TOS’s upcoming Congregational Meeting at 7:30pm on Monday, March 14, in Penn-Spero Hall. There will be an update from the Rabbinic Search and Planning Committee as well as a “State of the Shul” talk by congregational President Mike Weintraub – and plenty of time for congregational input and discussion.
Khurana says that in practice, few corporate boards take time out during a CEO search to discuss the company’s objectives and challenges. Instead, feeling pressure to fill the vacancy speedily, they rush to identify candidates. But he says organizations don’t have to rush. He cites a major consumer-products company whose board chose a respected director as an interim CEO, then proceeded to examine the company’s problems systematically. The board met with internal executives, analysts and customers to gain a better understanding of the strategic challenges the incoming CEO would face, and took time to assess the company’s future direction. Ultimately, the board was able to identify several candidates with the experience to guide the company as it made a strategic transition.
For the rabbinic search committee, it’s a point worth thinking about as we interview candidates. We’re trying to remain cognizant that in some circumstances, an interim candidate could be an excellent choice for TOS – it’s a matter of keeping the best interests of TOS in mind for both the short and long term.
Khurana’s next best practice is defining the candidate pool broadly. Boards should allow – even encourage – serious consideration of less-obvious candidates on the grounds that such executives would be more likely to bring about the kind of real change that companies need in order to thrive. A leader with a fresh perspective can help redefine the organization’s culture or strategy for the future.
In practice, most boards don’t encourage less-obvious candidates. They cling to conservative criteria, such as requiring that candidates bring experience as CEOs. The result can be a string of run-of-the-mill candidates.
Another best practice: Boards should recognize that a CEO is not a panacea. While the chief executive is an important element of how well the company does, there are many others. This is a particularly tough one to implement in practice, because many boards see the CEO as the main factor in company performance. But that outlook blinds board members to the contributions of other executives and to the importance of a well-functioning leadership team.
All these recommendations add up to the importance of being open-minded during a search and not letting the looming deadlines prevent the organization from taking the opportunity to reflect on what’s really important for future growth – good points for the rabbinic search committee and the entire TOS community to consider as we move into the next stages of the search process.
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